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Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
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Matthew Henry |
J E R E M I A H.
CHAP. XVIII.
In this chapter we have,
I. A general declaration of God’s ways in dealing with nations and
kingdoms, that he can easily do what he will with them, as easily as
the potter can with the clay
(ver. 1-6),
but that he certainly will do what is just and fair with them. If he
threaten their ruin, yet upon their repentance he will return in mercy
to them, and, when he is coming towards them in mercy, nothing but
their sin will stop the progress of his favours,
II. A particular demonstration of the folly of the men of Judah and
Jerusalem in departing from their God to idols, and so bringing ruin
upon themselves notwithstanding the fair warnings given them and God’s
kind intentions towards them,
III. The prophet’s complaint to God of the base ingratitude and
unreasonable malice of his enemies, persecutors, and slanderers, and
his prayers against them,
| The Sovereign Prerogative of God; Divine Goodness and Equity. | B. C. 600. |
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1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2 Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will
cause thee to hear my words.
3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he
wrought a work on the wheels.
4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of
the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to
the potter to make it.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith
the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are
ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.
7 At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and
concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to
destroy it;
8 If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from
their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto
them.
9 And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and
concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;
10 If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I
will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.
The prophet is here sent to the potter’s house (he knew where to
find it), not to preach a sermon as before to the gates of Jerusalem,
but to prepare a sermon, or rather to receive it ready prepared. Those
needed not to study their sermons that had them, as he had this, by
immediate inspiration. “Go to the potter’s house, and observe
how he manages his work, and there I will cause thee, by silent
whispers, to hear my words. There thou shalt receive a message,
to be delivered to the people.” Note, Those that would know God’s mind
must observe his appointments, and attend where they may hear his
words. The prophet was never disobedient to the heavenly vision,
and therefore went to the potter’s house
(v. 3)
and took notice how he wrought his work upon the wheels, just as
he pleased, with a great deal of ease, and in a little time. And
(v. 4)
when a lump of clay that he designed to form into one shape either
proved too stiff, or had a stone in it, or some way or other came to be
marred in his hand, he presently turned it into another shape;
if it will not serve for a vessel of honour, it will serve for a vessel
of dishonour, just as seems good to the potter. It is probable
that Jeremiah knew well enough how the potter wrought his work, and how
easily he threw it into what form he pleased; but he must go and
observe it now, that, having the idea of it fresh in his mind,
he might the more readily and distinctly apprehend that truth which God
designed thereby to represent to him, and might the more intelligently
explain it to the people. God used similitudes by his servants the
prophets
(Hos. xii. 10),
and it was requisite that they should themselves understand the
similitudes they used. Ministers will make a good use of their
converse with the business and affairs of this life if they learn
thereby to speak more plainly and familiarly to people about the things
of God, and to expound scripture comparisons. For they ought to make
all their knowledge some way or other serviceable to their
profession.
Now let us see what the message is which Jeremiah receives, and is
entrusted with the delivery of, at the potter’s house. While he looks
carefully upon the potter’s work, God darts into his mind these two
great truths, which he must preach to the house of Israel:—
I. That God has both an incontestable authority and an irresistible
ability to form and fashion kingdoms and nations as he pleases, so as
to serve his own purposes: “Cannot I do with you as this potter,
saith the Lord?
v. 6.
Have not I as absolute a power over you in respect both of might and of
right?” Nay, God has a clearer title to a dominion over us than the
potter has over the clay; for the potter only gives it its form,
whereas we have both matter and form from God. As the clay is in the
potter’s hand to be moulded and shaped as he pleases, so are you
in my hand. This intimates,
1. That God has an incontestable sovereignty over us, is not debtor to
us, may dispose of us as he thinks fit, and is not accountable to us,
and that it would be as absurd for us to dispute this as for the clay
to quarrel with the potter.
2. That it is a very easy thing with God to make what use he pleases of
us and what changes he pleases with us, and that we cannot resist him.
One turn of the hand, one turn of the wheel, quite alters the shape of
the clay, makes it a vessel, unmakes it, new-makes it. Thus are our
times in God’s hand, and not in our own, and it is in vain for us to
strive with him. It is spoken here of nations; the most politic, the
most potent, are what God is pleased to make them, and no other. See
this explained by Job
(ch. xii. 23),
He increaseth the nations and destroyeth them; he enlargeth the
nations and straiteneth them again. See
&c., and compare
All nations before God are as the drop of the bucket, soon wiped
away, or the small dust of the balance, soon blown away
(Isa. xl. 15),
and therefore, no doubt, as easily managed as the clay by the potter.
3. That God will not be a loser by any in his glory, at long run, but,
if he be not glorified by them, he will be glorified upon them. If the
potter’s vessel be marred for one use, it shall serve for another;
those that will not be monuments of mercy shall be monuments of
justice. The Lord has made all things for himself, yea, even the
wicked for the day of evil,
Prov. xvi. 4.
God formed us out of the clay
nay, and we are still as clay in his hands
(Isa. lxiv. 8);
and has not he the same power over us that the potter has over the
clay?
(Rom. ix. 21),
and are not we bound to submit, as the clay to the potter’s wisdom and
will?
II. That, in the exercise of this authority and ability, he always goes
by fixed rules of equity and goodness. He dispenses favours indeed in a
way of sovereignty, but never punishes by arbitrary power. High is
his right hand, yet he rules not with a high hand, but, as
it follows there, Justice and judgment are the habitation of his
throne,
Ps. lxxxix. 13, 14.
God asserts his despotic power, and tells us what he might do, but at
the same time assures us that he will act as a righteous and merciful
Judge.
1. When God is coming against us in ways of judgment we may be sure
that it is for our sins, which shall appear by this, that national
repentance will stop the progress of the judgments
(v. 7, 8):
If God speak concerning a nation to pluck up its fences that
secure it, and so lay it open, its fruit-trees that adorn and enrich
it, and so leave it desolate–to pull down its fortifications, that the
enemy may have liberty to enter in, its habitations, that the
inhabitants may be under a necessity of going out, and so destroy
it as either a vineyard or a city is destroyed–in this case, if
that nation take the alarm, repent of their sins and reform
their lives, turn every one from his evil way and return to God, God
will graciously accept them, will not proceed in his controversy, will
return in mercy to them, and, though he cannot change his mind, he will
change his way, so that it may be said, He repents him of the evil
he said he would do to them. Thus often in the time of the Judges,
when the oppressed people were penitent people, still God raised them
up saviours; and, when they turned to God, their affairs immediately
took a new turn. It was Nineveh’s case, and we wish it had oftener been
Jerusalem’s; see
It is an undoubted truth that a sincere conversion from the evil of sin
will be an effectual prevention of the evil of punishment; and God can
as easily raise up a penitent people from their ruins as the potter can
make anew the vessel of clay when it was marred in his hand.
2. When God is coming towards us in ways of mercy, if any stop be given
to the progress of that mercy, it is nothing but sin that gives it
(v. 9, 10):
If God speak concerning a nation to build and to plant it, to
advance and establish all the true interests of it, it is his
husbandly and his building
and, if he speak in favour of it, it is done, it is increased, it is
enriched, it is enlarged, its trade flourishes, its government is
settled in good hands, and all its affairs prosper and its enterprises
succeed. But if this nation, which God is thus loading with benefits,
do evil in his sight and obey not his voice,–if it lose
its virtue, and become debauched and profane,–if religion grow into
contempt, and vice to get to be fashionable, and so be kept in
countenance and reputation, and there be a general decay of serious
godliness among them,–then God will turn his hand against them, will
pluck up what he was planting, and pull down what he was building
(ch. xlv. 4);
the good work that was in the doing shall stand still and be let fall,
and what favours were further designed shall be withheld; and this is
called his repenting of the good wherewith he said he would benefit
them, as he changed his purpose concerning Eli’s house
and hurried Israel back into the wilderness when he had brought them
within sight of Canaan. Note, Sin is the great mischief-maker between
God and a people; it forfeits the benefit of his promises and spoils
the success of their prayers. It defeats his kind intentions concerning
them
and baffles their pleasing expectations from him. It ruins their
comforts, prolongs their grievances, brings them into straits, and
retards their deliverances,
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11 Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I
frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return
ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your
doings good.
12 And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our
own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil
heart.
13 Therefore thus saith the LORD; Ask ye now among the heathen,
who hath heard such things: the virgin of Israel hath done a very
horrible thing.
14 Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon which cometh from
the rock of the field? or shall the cold flowing waters that
come from another place be forsaken?
15 Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned
incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their
ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not
cast up;
16 To make their land desolate, and a perpetual hissing;
every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished, and wag his
head.
17 I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I
will shew them the back, and not the face, in the day of their
calamity.
These verses seem to be the application of the general truths laid down
in the foregoing part of the chapter to the nation of the Jews and
their present state.
I. God was now speaking concerning them to pluck up, and to
pull down, and to destroy; for it is that part of the rule
of judgment that their case agrees with
(v. 11):
“Go, and tell them” (saith God), “Behold I frame evil against
you and devise against you. Providence in all its operations is
plainly working towards your ruin. Look upon your conduct towards God,
and you cannot but see that you deserve it; look upon his dealings with
you, and you cannot but see that he designs it.” He frames evil, as the
potter frames the vessel, so as to answer the end.
II. He invites them by repentance and reformation to meet him in the
way of his judgments and so to prevent his further proceedings against
them: “Return you now every one from his evil ways, that so
(according to the rule before laid down) God may turn from the evil he
had purported to do unto you, and that providence which seemed to be
framed like a vessel on the wheel against you shall immediately be
thrown into a new shape, and the issue shall be in favour of you.”
Note, The warnings of God’s word, and the threatenings of his
providence, should be improved by us as strong inducements to us to
reform our lives, in which it is not enough to turn from our evil
ways, but we must make our ways and our doings good,
conformable to the rule, to the law.
III. He foresees their obstinacy, and their perverse refusal to comply
with this invitation, though it tended so much to their own benefit
(v. 12):
They said, “There is no hope. If we must not be delivered unless
we return from our evil ways, we may even despair of ever being
delivered, for we are resolved that we will walk after our own
devices. It is to no purpose for the prophets to say any more to
us, to use any more arguments, or to press the matter any further; we
will have our way, whatever it cost us; we will do every one the
imagination of his own evil heart, and will not be under the
restraint of the divine law.” Note, That which ruins sinners is
affecting to live as they list. They call it liberty to live at large;
whereas for a man to be a slave to his lusts is the worst of slaveries.
See how strangely some men’s hearts are hardened by the deceitfulness
of sin that they will not so much as promise amendment; nay, they set
the judgments of God at defiance: “We will go on with our own
devices, and let God go on with his; and we will venture the
issue.”
IV. He upbraids them with the monstrous folly of their obstinacy, and
their hating to be reformed. Surely never were people guilty of such an
absurdity, never any that pretended to reason acted so unreasonably
(v. 13):
Ask you among the heathen, even those that had not the benefit
of divine revelation, no oracles, no prophets, as Judah and Jerusalem
had, yet, even among them, who hath heart such a thing? The
Ninevites, when thus warned, turned from their evil ways. Some of the
worst of men, when they are told of their faults, especially when they
begin to smart for them, will at least promise reformation and say that
they will endeavour to mend. But the virgin of Israel bids
defiance to repentance, is resolved to go on frowardly, whatever
conscience and Providence say to the contrary, and thus has done a
horrible thing. She should have preserved herself pure and chaste
for God, who had espoused her to himself; but she has alienated herself
from him, and refuses to return to him. Note, It is a horrible
thing, enough to make one tremble to think of it, that those who
have made their condition sad by sinning should make it desperate by
refusing to reform. Wilful impenitence is the grossest self-murder; and
that is a horrible thing, which we should abhor the thought
of.
V. He shows their folly in two things:–
1. In the nature of the sin itself that they were guilty of. They
forsook God for idols, which was the most horrible thing that could be,
for they put a most dangerous cheat upon themselves
(v. 14, 15):
Will a thirsty traveller leave the snow, which, being
melted, runs down from the mountains of Lebanon, and, passing
over the rock of the field, flows in clear, clean, crystal
streams? Will he leave these, pass these by, and think to better
himself with some dirty puddle-water? Or shall the cold flowing
waters that come from any other place be forsaken in the heat of
summer? No; when men are parched with heat and drought, and meet with
cooling refreshing streams, they will make use of them, and not turn
their backs upon them. The margin reads it, “Will a man that is
travelling the road leave my fields, which are plain and level,
for a rock, which is rough and hard, or for the snow of
Lebanon, which, lying in great drifts, makes the road impassable?
Or shall the running waters be forsaken for the strange cold
waters? No; in these things men know when they are well off, and
will keep so; they will not leave a certainty for an uncertainty. But
my people have forgotten me
(v. 15),
have quitted a fountain of living waters for broken cisterns. They
have burnt incense to idols, that are as vain as vanity
itself, that are not what they pretend to be nor can perform what is
expected from them.” They had not the common wit of travellers, but
even their leaders caused them to err, and they were content to be
misled.
(1.) They left the ancient paths, which were appointed by the
divine law, which had been walked in by all the saints, which were
therefore the right way to their journey’s end, a safe way, and, being
well-tracked, were both easy to hit and easy to walk in. But, when they
were advised to keep to the good old way, they positively said that
they would not,
(2.) They chose by-paths; they walked in a way not cast up, not
in the highway, the King’s highway, in which they might travel safely,
and which would certainly lead them to their right end, but in a dirty
way, a rough way, a way in which they could not but stumble;
such was the way of idolatry (such is the way of all iniquity–it is a
false way, it is a way full of stumbling-blocks) and yet this way they
chose to walk in and lead others in.
2. In the mischievous consequences of it. Though the thing itself were
bad, they might have had some excuse for it if they could have promised
themselves any good out of it. But the direct tendency of it was to
make their land desolate, and, consequently, themselves miserable
(for so the inhabitants must needs be if their country be laid waste),
and both themselves and their land a perpetual hissing. Those
deserve to be hissed that have fair warning given them and will not
take it. Every one that passes by their land shall make his
remarks upon it, and shall be astonished, and way his head, some
wondering, others commiserating, others triumphing in the desolations
of a country that had been the glory of all lands. They shall
wag their heads in derision, upbraiding them with their folly in
forsaking God and their duty, and so pulling this misery upon their own
heads. Note, Those that revolt from God will justly be made the scorn
of all about them, and, having reproached the Lord, will themselves be
a reproach. Their land being made desolate, in pursuance
of their destruction, it is threatened
(v. 17),
I will scatter them as with an east wind, which is fierce and
violent; by it they shall be hurried to and fro before the
enemy, and find no way open to escape. They shall not only flee
before the enemy (that they might do and yet make an orderly retreat),
but they shall be scattered, some one way and some another. That which
completes their misery is, I will show them the back, and not the
face, in the day of their calamity. Our calamities may be easily
borne if God look towards us, and smile upon us, when we are under
them, if he countenance us and show us favour; but if he turn the
back upon us, if he show himself displeased, if he be deaf to our
prayers and refuse us his help, if he forsake us, leave us to
ourselves, and stand at a distance from us, we are quite undone. If
he hide his face, who then can behold him?
Job xxxiv. 29.
Herein God would deal with them as they had dealt with him
(ch. ii. 27),
They have turned their back unto me, and not their face. It is a
righteous thing with God to show himself strange to those in the day of
their trouble who have shown themselves rude and undutiful to him in
their prosperity. This will have its full accomplishment in that day
when God will say to those who, though they have been professors of
piety, were yet workers of iniquity, Depart from me, I know you
not, nay, I never knew you.
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18 Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against
Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor
counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and
let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any
of his words.
19 Give heed to me, O LORD, and hearken to the voice of them
that contend with me.
20 Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a
pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before thee to speak good
for them, and to turn away thy wrath from them.
21 Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and pour
out their blood by the force of the sword; and let their wives
be bereaved of their children, and be widows; and let their men
be put to death; let their young men be slain by the sword in
battle.
22 Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring
a troop suddenly upon them: for they have digged a pit to take
me, and hid snares for my feet.
23 Yet, LORD, thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay
me: forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from
thy sight, but let them be overthrown before thee; deal thus
with them in the time of thine anger.
The prophet here, as sometimes before, brings in his own affairs, but
very much for instruction to us.
I. See here what are the common methods of the persecutors. We may see
this in Jeremiah’s enemies,
1. They laid their heads together to consult what they should do
against him, both to be revenged on him for what he had said and to
stop his mouth for the future: They said, Come and let us devise
devices against Jeremiah. The enemies of God’s people and ministers
have been often very crafty themselves, and confederate with one
another, to do them mischief. What they cannot act to the prejudice of
religion separately they will try to do in concert. The wicked plots
against the just. Caiaphas, and the chief priests and elders, did
so against our blessed Saviour himself. The opposition which the gates
of hell give to the kingdom of heaven is carried on with a great deal
of cursed policy. God had said
(v. 11),
I devise a device against you; and now, as if they resolved to
be quits with him and to outwit Infinite Wisdom itself, they resolve to
devise devices against God’s prophet, not only against his
person, but against the word he delivered to them, which they thought
by their subtle management to defeat. O the prodigious madness of those
that hope to disannul God’s counsel!
2. Herein they pretended a mighty zeal for the church, which, they
suggested, was in danger if Jeremiah was tolerated to preach as he did:
“Come,” say they, “let us silence and crush him, for the law
shall not perish from the priest; the law of truth is in their
mouths
and there we will seek it; the administration of ordinances according
to the law is in their hands, and neither the one nor the other shall
be wrested from them. Counsel shall not perish from the wise;
the administration of public affairs shall always be lodged with the
privy-counsellors and ministers of state, to whom it belongs;
nor shall the word perish from the prophets”
–they mean those of their own choosing, who prophesied to them smooth
things, and flattered them with visions of peace. Two things they
insinuated:–
(1.) That Jeremiah could not be himself a true prophet, but was a
pretender and a usurper, because he neither was commissioned by the
priests, nor concurred with the other prophets, whose authority
therefore will be despised if he be suffered to go on. “If Jeremiah be
regarded as an oracle, farewell the reputation of our priests, our wise
men, and prophets; but that must be supported, which is reason
enough why he must be suppressed.”
(2.) That the matter of his prophecies could not be from God, because
it reflected sometimes upon the prophets and priests; he had charged
them with being the ringleaders of all the mischief
and deceiving the people
(ch. xiv. 14);
he had foretold that their heart should perish, and be
astonished
(ch. iv. 9),
that the wise men should be dismayed
that the priests and prophets should be intoxicated,
Now this galled them more than any thing else. Presuming upon the
promise of God’s presence with their priests and prophets, they could
not believe that he would ever leave them. The guides of the church
must needs be infallible, and therefore he who foretold their being
infatuated must be condemned as a false prophet. Thus, under colour of
zeal for the church, have its best friends been run down.
3. They agreed to do all they could to blast his reputation: “Come,
let us smite him with the tongue, put him into an ill name, fasten
a bad character upon him, represent him to some as despicable and fit
to be prosecuted, to all as odious and not fit to be tolerated.” This
was their device, fortiter calumniari, aliquid adhærebit–to
throw the vilest calumnies at him, in hopes that some would adhere to
him. to dress him up in bearskins, otherwise they could not bait
him. Those who projected this, it is likely, were men of figure, whose
tongue was no small slander, whose representations, though ever so
false, would be credited both by princes and people, to make him
obnoxious to the justice of the one and the fury of the other. The
scourge of such tongues will give not only smart lashes, but deep
wounds; it is a great mercy therefore to be hidden from it,
Job v. 21.
4. To set others an example, they resolved that they would not
themselves regard any thing he said, though it appeared ever so weighty
and ever so well confirmed as a message from God: Let us not give
heed to any of his words; for, right or wrong, they will look upon
them to be his words, and not the words of God. What good can be
done with those who hear the word of God with a resolution not to heed
it or believe it? Nay,
5. That they may effectually silence him, they resolve to be the death
of him
(v. 23):
All their counsel against me is to slay me. They hunt
for the precious life; and a precious life indeed it was that they
hunted for. Long was this Jerusalem’s wretched character, Thou that
killedst many of the prophets, and wouldst have killed them
all.
II. See here what is the common relief of the persecuted. This we may
see in the course that Jeremiah took when he met with this hard usage.
He immediately applied to his God by prayer, and so gave himself
ease.
1. He referred himself and his cause to God’s cognizance,
They would not regard a word he said, would not admit his complaints,
nor take any notice of his grievances; but, Lord (says he),
do thou give heed to me. It is matter of comfort to faithful
ministers that, if men will not give heed to their praying. He appeals
to God as an impartial Judge, that will hear both sides, as every judge
ought to do. “Do not only give heed to me, but hearken to the
voice of those that contend with me; hear what they have to say
against me and for themselves, and then make it to appear that thou
sittest in the throne, judging right. Hear the voice of my
contenders, how noisy and clamorous they are, how false and malicious
all they say is, and let them be judged out of their own mouth;
cause their own tongues to fall upon them.“
2. He complains of their base ingratitude to him
(v. 20):
“Shall evil be recompensed for good, and shall it go unpunished?
Wilt not thou recompense me good for that evil?”
To render good for good is human, evil for evil is brutish, good for
evil is Christian, but evil for good is devilish; it is so very absurd
and wicked a thing that we cannot think but God will avenge it. See how
great the evil was that they did against him: They have dug a pit
for my soul; they aimed to take away his life (no less would
satisfy them), and that not in a generous way, by an open assault,
against which he might have an opportunity of defending himself, but in
a base, cowardly, clandestine way: they dug pits for him, which
there was no fence against,
But see how great the good was which he had done for them: Remember
that I stood before thee to speak good for them; he had been an
intercessor with God for them, had used his interest in heaven on their
behalf, which was the greatest kindness they could expect from one of
his character. He is a prophet and he shall pray for thee,
Gen. xx. 7.
Moses often did this for Israel, and yet they quarrelled with him, and
sometimes spoke of stoning him. He did them this kindness when
they were in imminent danger of destruction and most needed it. They
had themselves provoked God’s wrath against them, and it was ready to
break in upon them, but he stood in the gap (as Moses,
and turned away that wrath. Now,
(1.) This was very base in them. Call a man ungrateful and you can call
him no worse. But it was not strange that those who had forgotten their
God did not know their best friends.
(2.) It was very grievous to him, as the like was to David.
For my love they are my adversaries. Thus disingenuously do
sinners deal with the great intercessor, crucifying him afresh, and
speaking against him on earth, while his blood is speaking for them in
heaven. See
But,
(3.) It was a comfort to the prophet that, when they were so spiteful
against him, he had the testimony of his conscience for him that he had
done his duty to them; and the same will be our rejoicing in such a day
of evil. The blood-thirsty hate the upright, but the just seek his
soul,
Prov. xxix. 10.
3. He imprecates the judgments of God upon them, not from a revengeful
disposition, but in a prophetical indignation against their horrid
wickedness,
He prays,
(1.) That their families might be starved for want of bread:
“Deliver up the children to the famine, to the famine in the
country for want of rain, and that in the city through the straitness
of the siege. Thus let this iniquity of the fathers be visited upon the
children.”
(2.) That they might be cut off by the sword of war, which,
whatever it was in the enemy’s hand, would be, in God’s hand, a sword
of justice: “Pour them out (so the word is) by the hands of
the sword; let their blood be shed as profusely as water,
that their wives may be left childless and widows, their
husbands being taken away by death” (some think that the prophet
refers to pestilence); let their young men, that are the
strength of this generation and the hope of the next, be slain by
the sword in battle.
(3.) That the terrors and desolations of war might seize them suddenly
and by surprise, that thus their punishment might answer to their sin
(v. 22):
“Let a cry be heard from their houses, loud shrieks, when
thou shalt bring a troop of the Chaldeans suddenly upon
them, to seize them and all they have, to make them prisoners and
their estates a prey;” for thus they would have done by Jeremiah; they
aimed to ruin him at once ere he was aware: “They have dug a pit
for me, as for a wild beast, and have hid snares
for me, as for some ravenous noxious fowl.” Note, Those that think
to ensnare others will justly be themselves ensnared in an evil time.
(4.) That they might be dealt with according to the desert of this sin,
which was without excuse: “Forgive not their iniquity, neither blot
out their sin from thy sight; that is, let them not escape the just
punishment of it; let them lie under all the miseries of those whose
sins are unpardoned.”
(5.) That God’s wrath against them might be their ruin: Let them be
overthrown before thee. This intimates that justice was in pursuit
of them, that they endeavoured to make their escape from it, but in
vain; “they shall be made to stumble in their flight, and being
overthrown they will certainly be overtaken.” And then, Lord, in the
time of thy anger, do to them (he does not say what he would have
done to them, but) do to them as thou thinkest fit, as thou usest to do
with those whom thou art angry with–deal thus with them. Now
this is not written for our imitation. Jeremiah was a prophet, and by
the impulse of the spirit of prophecy, in the foresight of the ruin
certainly coming upon his persecutors, might pray such prayers as we
may not; and, if we think by this example to justify ourselves in such
imprecations, we know not what manner of spirit we are of; our
Master has taught us, by his precept and pattern, to bless those
that curse us and pray for those that despitefully use us. Yet it
is written for our instruction, and is of use to teach us,
[1.] That those who have forfeited the benefit of the prayers of God’s
prophets for them may justly expect to have their prayers against them.
[2.] That persecution is a sin that fills the measure of a people’s
iniquity very fast, and will bring as sure and sore a destruction upon
them as any thing.
[3.] Those who will not be won upon by the kindness of God and his
prophets will certainly at length feel the just resentments of
both.
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