Israel's Temporal Blessings in Contrast to the Curse
IN CONTRAST TO THE CURSE.
* BUT SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF OOD AND HIS RIGHTEOCRNES8, AND ALL THESE THINGS SHALL BE ADDED UNTO YOU,” Matt vL 33.
Rich promises of temporal blessing to Israel form the solemn conclusion to the full declaration made throughout this book of their duty and privileges in things spiritual. He that is so gracious in blessing the soul is not sparing in his kindness to the body. And while all here is spoken nationally, yet do we not recognize Him who said these things at the foot of Sinai, speaking in the same kind tone on the mountain in Galilee, when to every disciple he promises, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you?” Oh! Israel, our Redeemer is your Jehovah! The same heart yearns, the same lips move, at Sinai, and in Galilee. Oh! that thou hadst hearkened to his commandments! “then had thy peace been as a river — like thine own river Jordan, ever flowing, often overflowing —” and thy righteousness like the waves of the sea.” Like thy great Western Sea with all its waves, able to cover over all thy sins, such would have been the righteousness that he would have given thee. (Isa. xlviii. 18.) And then all other things would have followed. “Thy seed had been as the sand” — numerous as the countless sands of that wide Mediterranean Sea — “and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof — filling thy happy land; while “thy name should not have been cut off, nor destroyed from before him.” Oh! Israel, return, return! He earnestly remembers thee still.
Vers. ], 2. “Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it; for I am the Lord your God. Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.”
The Lord alone must be worshipped (ver. 1), and He must be worshipped as he requires (ver. 2). The Lord seeks our whole heart, our unaverted eye, our entire soul. “No idols;” other objects that sit on the throne of our heart, whether of silver and gold, or of flesh and blood, or of earth’s common objects, like houses and lands, riches and honor, all these are Q^bi^N, “things of naught” — utterly despicable in his view. “Graven images,” and “standing images,” (or pillars like obelisks,) and “images of .stone,” (or ‘• stones of imagery “such as Ezekiel viii. 8, describes) — all these are wholly abominable to the Lord. Set up no rival, none that approaches near; not even father or mother, wife or child. And in order to cherish this state of soul, his Sabbaths must be kept and his sanctuary reverenced; the sinner must employ himself, amid holy scenes and at holy times, in bathing his soul in the love of God. If any one neglects the time set apart by God for this end — ‘^ the Sabbath” — how can such a one ever expect to feel steeped in the holy awe and love that is due to the Lord? When a man goes to the region of the Alps, he requires time to see the relative magnitude of objects; he does not at one glance see their immense height and sublime elevation. It is often days ere he arrive at a proper estimate, because he is now in a new and unwonted region. So it is with Divine realities; you must spend time, continuously and uninterruptedly, in order to have your soul truly afl’ected. In like manner, also, the sanctuary must be frequented. It is the Lord’s ordinance. Would you have refrained from taking the fruit of the forbidden tree, as a test of obedience, who will not reverence the sanctuary? Where is your childlike submission of will? Nay, where is your love to your Father, if you go not to the spot where he meets with his own so specially?
All declension and decay may be said to be begun wherever we see these two ordinances despised — the Sabbath and the sanctuary. They are the outioard fence around the inward love commanded by ver. 1.
THE BLESSING HELD OUT.
Vers. 3, 4, 5, 6. “If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commaodmeuts, and do them, then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach into the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing-time; and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall * the sword go through your land.”
The Lord made Israel” Jeshiirun,^^ the prosperous one,
blessing him with all temporal things whenever Israel
Bought the spiritual. It was a scene like the unfallon
age.*
* Such as Hesiod (Ef>/a <r. htp. 116) fancies to have been in the golden
Israel was offered the privilege of being, even in respect of temporal blessings, a type of Eden restored. As their ceremonies and institutions were to the world a type of all the spiritual blessings which Jesus brings, so the very aspect of their land might have been the type of the external blessings which Jesus brings at his second coming to the earth.
In Solomon’s days, these blessings were probably realized more fully than at any period of Israel’s history. His were the times of peace, so peculiarly typical of Messiah’s reign in the latter day.
Think of the blessings poured out to their view here. The sky above their land, pure and sapphire-blue at other times, sends down needful rains at the proper season with such regularity, that in ver. 4 the Hebrew calls them “your rains’^ (cs’^TgiiJa). Would they not learn, by every such shower, our lessons? “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.” ( Jas. i. 17.) Their soil scarcely feels what barrenness means; “it yields its increase” for man and beast — even as, when the curse is repealed, we shall sing yet more fully than they, “Let all the people praise thee; then shall the earth yield her increase.” (Ps. lxvii. 6.) The trees that shade their dwellings, or stand thick in their orchards, give abundant fruit; figs, dates, pomegranates, grapes, are poured into their lap as the season returns. Their corn-fields yield so plentifully, that scarcely can the husbandman finish his labors here
age. ‘A(pii€tot iirjAoiai, <ptloi fiaKiipcaci tiloiai. Indeed, Israel’s land answers well to the poetic descriptions of that time, “flowing with n Ik and honey;”
“Flumina jam lactis jam flumina nectaris ibant, Flavaque de viridi stillabant ilice mella.”
(Ovid’s Met i. 111.)
before the vintage calls for his care; and he has not ceased the cares of vintage when sowing-time arrives.
Israel had, at least in Solomon’s days, a shadow of what is coming on, “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that the ploughman shall overtake the reaper; and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills melt.” (Amos xiii. 13.)
And lo! Israel enjoys the very fulness of bread that Sodom had in her best days; and this fulness is a blessing, not a curse to Israel. There is safety, too; for no foe appears, neither is there disquiet in the land. No civil broils, no domestic quarrels, no heart-burnings. No robbers in the land disturb them by day or night; no fear on any side. How like the time when men “shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks!” (Isa. ii. 4.) 0 house of Jacob I come ye and walk in the light of the Lord, and this shall be yours again. And “evil beasts’^ shall cease; the great proof of the land returning to something of an Eden-stato, where man had full dominion over the beasts of the field; and” no sword)’’ passes through, for this is the land of the Prince of Peace.
Surely Israel’s land in such days as Solomon’s was intended to be typical of the earth’s millennial rest!
Vers. 7, 8, 9, 10. “And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and jour enemies shall full before you by the sword. For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you. And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new.”
If foes invade your land, they shall be driven back, and so easily driven back, that five shall put a hundred to flight, and an hundred defeat a whole host of ten thousand. By stating the foes’ defeat in this form, we are led to understand that the Lord would bless their united and harmonious efforts, so thatve united would be equal to twenty of the foe, and ten, to a thousand. They act together, none stands aloof from the other ;* and in this they resemble believers asking “with one accord” (Acts iv. 24), and obtaining, in return, such a blessing that the place is shaken with the Lord’s presence. And in millennial days, what foe shall stand before men who are “as the angel of the Lord?” (Zech. xii. 8.) All this shall be secured to them — fertility, numerous population, plentiful produce, so that last year’s store shall not be nearly exhausted before this year’s is at the barn-door, seeking to be lodged in the granary. Even Egypt, in the seven years of plenty, could scarcely be more abundant. But it is free grace that bestows these blessings. “I shall establish my covenant with you;” the Lord engages to give on his own generous terms, terms which we may judge of by this fact, whiclr is also stated here, that his covenant itself is the outflowing of free love; “/ loill have respect unto you.” Israel’s streams of blessing in Solomon’s days, as well as the floods of blessing yet to be poured out in coming days, are all free and spontaneous, unmerited gifts from the Lord’s love. Oh, what has not that love imparted! and yet how unweariedly still that love yearns to impart more and more I
* Joshua xxiii, 10, says, “One man of you shall chase a thousand,” and Deut xxxii. 30, “How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to ilight?” There is no inconsistency; but here the victory is represented as given to a cluster, or compact band, in order to exhibit the brotherly union of those days.
“Vers. 11, 12, 13. “And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye shall not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.”
The type here reaches its highest point. “Behold! the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.” (Rev. xxi. 3.) Solomon’s temple in all its glory, and Solomon himself there in all his wisdom, formed but a type of the Prince of Peace when he shall fulfil that portion of the prophetic word. But, 0 happy Israel! “Who is like unto thee? Thou hadst the foretastes of these precious things. Thy God dwelt, by his cloud of glory, among thy tribes, and was felt to be present throughout all thy borders. And there yet await thee, 0 Jeshurun, happier days than all, when thou returnest to the Lord; for then the antitype of all these shadows shall be with thee. The Lord Jesus, on the transfiguration-hill, was found, at the close, alone (Mark ix. 7, 8), shining with the light inaccessible. And, at that moment, the bright cloud, which was no other than the cloud that rested over Israel’s mercy -seat, was seen hanging over him and pointing toward his person, while the voice of the Father cried,” This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!” Jesus, then, is the antitype of the mercy-seat that was in Israel’s tabernacle; and in him, therefore, shall the glory of God be manifest in that day when Ezekiel’s words are fulfilled,” Mj, tabernacle shall be with theni’^ (Ezek, xxxvii. 27), and when the Lamb in the midst of the throne shall lead his own to living fountains of water, then, too, shall he wipe all tears from their eyes, and be known as their God; even as in type he freed Israel from bondage, and made them walk upright,’’’’ i. e., not as dejected, burdened men, hanging their heads through sorrow of heart, but as freemen, walking cheerfully and confidently in their own land.
But why is that clause inserted, ‘■^And my soul shall not abhor them .^” It seems thrown in on purpose to remind Israel, that though they are thus favored, they deserved it not. This store of blessing is all free grace. These highly favored ones were once “cast out in the open field to the loathing of their persons For, as if to explain this clause, Ezekiel (chap. xvi. 5) uses the words that are used here, saying of them that they were thrown out, like unburied carcasses, on the surface of the ground, “in a state that might make one loathe them” (^sia T]^B?); though the king, in wondrous grace, chose to love them, saying, “My soul shall not loathe thee” (xb ^»5n). His redeemed can never forget whence they were taken, and yet they can never doubt of the security of their state now; he that had mercy on them can never more forsake them. His spontaneous love is their everlasting assurance of security, when it shines to them through the tabernacle-veil — the veil of the Redeemer’s flesh.
THE BLESSING REJECTED.
Vers. 14, 15. “But if ye will not. hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; and if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you.”
The curse, or judgments, that follow, are effects of despising the blessing. They do not seem intended to exhibit hell in all its aspects, but only that misery which arises from rejecling the offers gf grace. Israel needed to be warned of this danger in special, for it was to characterize their history. The judgments mentioned here did not fall on Heathen nations. There are woes that none shall ever feel except men that might have been blessfed beyond their fellows. Israel, who might have had such continuance of unchanging love to their souls, and such millennial-like blessings to their land, suffer punishment beyond other men. They have become the most emphatic warning that can be given to sinners, to beware of despising offered grace. The offer has come to thee, sinner — the offer, through Christ’s work, of present salvation and future glory in his kingdom. Thou must accept, and be btessed above other men; or thine only alternative is, thou must, in rejecting it, be unspeakably more cursed than all besides.
THE CURSE UPON REJECTERS OF THE BLESSING.
Vers. 16, 17. “I also will do this vmto you; I will even appoint orer you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of Iieart :* and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemias shall eat it. And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that bate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none parsueth you.” A stroke upon their persons.
Grod’s majesty cannot suffer wrong. We cannot slight his proffered gifts without exposing our souls to the severest rebukes of his anger. The majesty of his love is wronged by the indifference of the sinner, and the obstinate rebellion of the sinner. Israel was made to feel this, “Terror” instead of calm, serene peace; “consumption and ague,” instead of health and strength, onoe
* The form paino is for nis^XTB characteristic of the people of the God of Jeshurun; blasted hopes and labors, defeated armies, foreign governors in their cities, and their own heart sinking in hopelessness. The Lord did this in the days of the Judges; and though it be only the weakness of Israel, and their many disasters, that are recorded, yet I think we may certainly conclude that these diseases — this “consumption and burning ague’’ and this ^’■terror” — were secretly at work bringing down the people’s strength and courage. When the prophet tells Eli, from the Lord, “The man of thine, whom I shall not cut off from mine altar, shall be to consume thine eyes and grieve thy hearV (1 Sam. ii. 33), he is using language which Israel no doubt understood as a reference to the passage before us. What is meant by (Ps. lxxviii. 63)” The fire consumed their young men?” May these plagues be meant in part? And again, after the first captivity, did not the many diseases in our Lord’s time, correspond to the” diseases of EgypV in Deut. xxviii. 60?*
The Lord appointed these judgments. The word is T!’]15Bni the same as -in Ps. cix. 6, “Set thou a wicked man over him,” and the same as in Isaiah lxii. 6, “I have set watchmen over thy walls, 0 Jerusalem.” The word means, that a charge is given to these instruments to execute a certain purpose; they are appointed to the office of seeing to this being done. In our Lord’s time these plagues surely had begun? So many diseases in so healthy a land? And the physician came, offering to turn back the begun calamity, and showing his power.
* It might be inquired, also, if” the evil angels’^ scut on the Egyptians, Ps. lxxviii. 49, may not have been the same as the devils that possessed the demoniacs.
Vers. 18, 19, 20. “And if ye will not yet, for all thi.«i, hearken nnti) ro«^ then I wiH punish you seven times more for your sin!”. And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: And your strength shall be sptrnt in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall tho trees of the land yield their fruits.” A stroke on their posnixKiont.
From this let sinners carefully observe, that offers of kindness rejected, after warning of the fatal consequences, shall be followed by severer 8tr«^es of wrath than would have come on them before. Every offer of grace, especially if accompanied by warning as to the fatal consequences of rejection, brings sevenfold guilt on the rejecter.
“The pride of your power ^’’ may mean the luxuriance of their land, in which they boasted; or if it mean their power as a mighty people, then the bringing it down refers to the effects of famine upon the resources of their kingdom. “Their strength is spent in vain,” when, as in Ahab’s days, their heaven over them yields no rain, but is as iron.
Some have ascribed the present sterility of Palestine to want of cultivation. But this verse proves that there is a curse besides. It is here declared that “the land shall not yield her increase’’ even if tilled. Nor shall” the trees of the land yield their fruits’’ even if cultivated; so that it is not only because not carefully attended to that the palm does not now grow luxuriantly there, and the vines. There is a secret curse fallen on that land that rejected mercy and despised warning.
Vers. 21, 22.” And if ye walk contrary* unto me, and will not hearken
* ^“ip i« for ■’Ipa, as it occurs ver. 24, and literally it would be rendered, “And if your way of walking with me be ’ contra me,’” “in oppositioa to my will.” (See Rosenmuller.) Originally n-ip would be a noun, q. d. If your walk be a “going counter to,” or contradiction of me.
M unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins. I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number: and your highways shall be desolate.” A stroke upon their children and cattle.
New calamities come, because of new provocations. Oh, unbelieving soul, every new offer pressed home on thee by warnings, and yet rejected, adds to thy condemnation, and draws out another arrow from the Lord’s qaiver I
Instead of man’s original lordship over the creatures, lo! the beasts of the field rise up against rebellious man. This strange foe advances to their dwellings; and the cattle grazing before their door, and their little children playing on the grass, are devoured before their eyes by this new assailant. The cockatrice, and serpents that will not be charmed (Jer. viii. 17), bite their little ones, destroying the type that Israel’s land presented of the time when “the weaned child should put his hand on the cockatrice-den” (Isa. xi. 8). The leopard watches his opportunity; the evening wolf ravages the flock; and the bear tears what he finds within his reach; the lion springs on his prey.
It must have appeared singular that in a land so fully peopled as Palestine was in the days of the kings, there should be so often notices of wild beasts roaming among them — bears from the forests of Bethel (2 Kings ii. 24), and lions on the highway between Bethel and Judah (1 Kings xiii. 24). But it is evident that their existence in so densely a peopled land was somewhat miraculous; it was by Divine appointment. It was to keep Israel in mind of this passage of the law; and whenever wild beasts multiplied, they were to see herein a proof that they had advanced far onward in rebellion, this being the
-♦^
third stage of the Lord’s wrath. And hence .Tudah
could read the indignation of the Lord in the Huns of Samaria (2 Kings xvii. 26), and tremble at the progress of wrath. So Jer. ii. 15 may refer to this — the roaring and yelling of young lions in the desolate cities of Samaria.
Vers. 23, 24, 25. “And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me; then will I walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant”
The sword goes through the land! Instead of peace and safety, the blood of Israel is shed by violent hands. The blood that ratified their covenant with God had been despised; therefore, Jo! their own blood must be shed to avenge the broken covenant.
Ver. 25. “And when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye sh.ill be delivered into the hand of the enemy.”
Pestilence and plague ravage their cities. Thinking to escape the sword of the invader, they betake themselves to fenced cities; and defy the enemy. But the Lord scales their walls and leads in his troops, viz., the pestilence with all its horrors. The raging pestilence soon weakens the hands of the defenders of their cities, and opens the gates to the foe. “Know, then, that it is an evil and a bitter thing to depart from the Lord.”
Ver. 26. “And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.”
Famine follows pestilence! So scarce is food now, that instead of each family having its own oven, one oven suffices for ten families, and the quantity given to each is scrupulously weighed, and none receive enough to satisfy their hunger. When Judah felt these horrors of famine in the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (Jer. xxxviii. 9), they might know assuredly that the Lord’s arrows were coming fast from his quiver.
Vers. 2*7, 28, 29, 30, 81, 32, 33. “And if ye will not for all this, hearken unto me, but -walk contrary unto me; then I will walk
contrary unto you also in fury; and T, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto des- “olation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors. And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.”
“Behold! their house is left unto them desolate!” He is an awfully holy and an infallibly true God! He did do all that is threatened here. And as assuredly as he did these things, so shall he assuredly kindle the flames of an unquenchable fire for the unbelieving and often-warned man. Gospel-hearer, this picture of the Lord’s strict truth is terribly severe on you. For this shall be thy doom. “7, even I, shall chastise seven times /” Oh! this is the work of a long-suffering God. “I will walk contrary to you in fury.’”* This is the wrath of the Lamb! Israel felt this fury. In the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, of which the siege of Samaria in former days was a feeble prototype, mothers eat their children, according to Lamentations iv. 10, and
* The Hebrew is peculiar, i“ip-r!an3, “Jn the fury of opposition,” or contrariety. See up. note, page 480.
in their final siege by Titus, the same scene of horrid and terrific despair was exhibited. It seems a type of what shall take place in hell — all natural ties forever broken; and nearest relations approaching and accusing and tormenting each other, finding no other food but to upbraid others with their ruin.
The lightning of God’s wrath struck down their high places and idolatrous images; not a vestige of these can be found by any traveller. As for the worshippers, they perished with the “carcasses,” or brokenimages of their gods — a type of hell again! For there the sinner’s idols shall be seen to be forever ruined and destroyed; and yet the sinner’s memory rolls over and over upon past scenes that only cause him torment.
Their cities lie waste at this day, and their “sanctuaries,” i. 6., their temple with its courts, and there are no sweet-smelling offerings presented to the Lord in Judah’s land. No one can discover more than the mere foundation of ancient edifices, and few even of these. Jerusalem’s walls and temple exist only in fragments of foundation-stones; Bethel is a field scattered over with demolished walls; Samaria’s foundations, and a few of her shattered colunms, are all the remainder of former glory. No one has found Tirzah. Hundreds of ruined towns can be discovered by the name still lingering over the ruins, but by that alone. Shiloh is now Setlwan, and presents no dwelling or town, but only a few ruins. Lebonah, now Khan Leban, has a well for watering flocks at noon, and two o» three dwellings near. Kirjathjeartm, now Karieh, is a beautiful village, but its pomegranates and olives shade no more than a dozen dwellings. Beersheba has its well still, and plentiful water, but is no more a city. Jericho, now Riha hfis some mud houses near the spring that Elisha sweetened; and this is all thaA remains of the city of palm-trees. Libnah and Lachish and Maresha, famous in the wars of Judah, are not to be found even in name. Hazor, famous as a northern citadel, has only lately been found by Dr. Keith, bearing the name, but possessing no more than a few remnants of an ancient fortress. Capernaum Bethsaida, and Chorazin, are not truly ascertained. 8arepta is a little village called Sarfand, on a hillside, overlooking the sea-shore, whereon its stately mansions once more built. Zebulon, now Abilene, is but a village; and Cana a very small one. Even peopled cities that do remain boast of few thousands; Jerusalem has its twenty thousand; Hebron its ten; Si/char, its ten — and this, or such like, is all that the cities of Judah and of Israel yield! “True and righteous are thy judgments,” 0 Lord God of Israel.
The land is desolate. The plains of Jezreel and Sharon lie nearly untilled. Every traveller wonders at large spaces of rich soil left to lie fallow. Enemies occupy their inheritance, and destroy it — yet once “The kings of the earth would not have believed that the adversary should have entered into the gate of Jerusalem.” (Lam. iv. 12.)
And poor Israel wanders over every country and kingdom on the face of the earth — “scattered and peeled.” And while the Lord still pities them, he “abhors them” (ver. 30) for their sin, as “in the day when they were cast out into the open field,” though he still loveth the nation for their fathers’ sake (ver. 44). On that open field they are cast again, to the loathing of their person! Who is there that knows not this to be the fate of Israel? Not a word has fallen to the ground.
Vers. 84, 85, 36, 37, 38, 89. “Then shall the lood enjoy her sabbatha, aa long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them: and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies!. And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.”
So full and obviously are verses 34, 35, fulfilled, that Dr. Keith quotes Bowring’s Report of the Commercial Statistics of Syria, 1840, which says, “Regions of the highest fertility remain fallow.”
Some adopt Houbigant’s view that the Jews had never kept the Sabbatic year from the days of Saul till the captivity, a space of four hundred and ninety years, giving seventy Sabbatic years. But there is no authority for this singular assertion regarding the neglect of the Jews; nay, 2 Kings xix. 29 and Jer. xxxiv. 17 are sufficient to show that these seasons were observed.
The sin of Israel lay in their manner of keeping Sabbath-days and Sabbath-years. Their God was not honored; they did not give spiritual service. They also turned the observance of the seasons appointed into times of pleasure — riding in their chariots, probably, and giving themselves to amusements. But the reference chiefly is to cases of such neglect occurring, not to the continuance of it so long a time as seventy years. Nay, their land lies desolate still for that same sin. Men shall suffer if they keep not God’s way. Your laud “shall atone for her Sabbaths” (G-esenius).* Alas! our land seems near its day of doom! Incessant movement of men over its breadth and length! Where is the rest? But so it shall be as the time draws near wherein the Sabbath of earth shall arrive, when the disturbers of its rest are brought to silence.
The unwarliko, timid, feeble state of the Jews in every land fulfils vers. 36, 37. The word T^’ib implies timidity and softness of spirit, unable to bear up against trouble, and showing a cowai-dice under their oppressions very different from the mighty warriors of Israel in the days of their fathers. Easily alarmed, and so alarmed that, like men in hasty flight, “they fall on one another.” The Jews never can resist, and never try to resist, their foes: they suffer and complain, and their cries spread over the earth.
History tells (as ver. 38) how many have perished in the enemies’ land; and how miserably they have spent their days, degraded and oppressed. Their own sin and their fathers’ has been broken Sabbaths, and the rejection of the Saviour, the Lord of the Sabbath. For is there not a hint given us of this in the “iniquities of their fathers?” Is not the cry, “His blood be on us and on our children’^ included here? Oh! how like the comfortless, heart-sickening, hopeless state of the lost are these poor Israelites, “without God and without hope,” because “without Christ.” Shall it always be thus? “Turn their captivity, 0 Lord, like the streams of the south!”
And let us Gentiles fear sin even when only imputed. “Our father” Adam’s sin lies on us; besides the sins of
* The Septuagint uses the expression “eiioKrioet f) yii ra aaffara-” as if
resting with delight over the Sabbatic stillnesa.
; our fathers in this land.” Lord, wash me thoroughly.’’ (Ps. li. 2.)
Israel’s restoration.
Ver. 40. “If they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me.”
Hear, 0 Israel! Does this not call thee to consider thy unbelief? Is there nothing calling thee to “look on Him whom thy fathers pierced?” What are * ’ thy fathers sins?”
Vers. 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45. “And that also they have walked contrary unto me; and that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land. The land also shall be left of them, nud shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the Lord their Ood. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”
“law Jehovah;” therefore, he remembers his covenant with Abraham. As he manifested that name on the first Exodus (Exod. vi. 3), though for a long time before he showed only his all-sujficiency* so shall he manifest it by his acts at the final Exodus of Israel from all the lands of their dispersion.
Here we have, so to speak, a permanent fact, or trutiw
* The name iriiiJ ^K.
on which to rest the proof of Israel’s restoration to their own land. It is this: the covenant with their fathers contained a grant of the land; and the Grod of Israel is Jehovah. “Whenever Israel serves the Lord, Israel obtains all that that grant contains. “If they confess,” then, lo! they must return home also. Israel’s repentance and Israel’s restoration to their old estates go together. When, as in Micah vii. 9, the Jews confess and accept, or admit as righteous, what they suffer, then their restoration is at hand. It is true, they may return before they repent; but the land is not theirs until they repent. And I think this is the meaning of Ezekiel xxxvi. 37. “I shall yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.” It is Israel’s prayer to the Lord, when repentant, to settle them in their land and restore to the land its fruitfuhiess. See the whole chapter.
Yer. 42 is very remarkable in the Hebrew. It is literally, “I will remember my covenant, Jacob,” &o. There is no “with.’’^ May God not be speaking here to these patriarchs whose God He is at this moment, and saying, “I will remember my covenant, 0 Jacob, made with thee! and my covenant, 0 Isaac, with thee; and I will remember my covenant, 0 Abraham, with thee, and the land wherein thou wast a stranger?” The land, too, wherein his own Son was a Man of Sorrows, can that land ever be forgotten? The cross was there; shall not the throne be there too?
Ver. 43 repeats the cause why there ever was desolation at all, and how long it is to continue. In ver. 44, the first words rsiT n ^^.), ‘-<■ Yet for all that,” should rather be, “Yea, moreover, I shall do this.” — (Rosenmiiller.) This is the renewed declaration of the Lord’s determination to restore them: and henoe, some of the German Jews who are fond of conceit, mark this word tiK, as “The golden J/”.”
All is done in free love. It is covenant-mercy. “Salvation to Him that sittth on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Yer. 46. “These are the statates and judgments and laws, (‘hicb the Lord made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.”
He seeth the end from the beginning. He knew the kind of people whom he had chosen. For see, at the foot of Sinai, he speaks in this prophetic strain, warning them of what he sees coming on. He knew their hearts; he did not choose them for their worthiness; he manifested grace in them. From Sinai he looks down the stream of ages and sees their sin, and yet goes forward to manifest his love and make them the objects. “There is none like the God of Jeshurun.”