الكتاب المقدس

Expositor's Bible Commentary Jeremiah 13:1 Thus saith the LORD unto me, Go and get thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, and put it not in water. CHAPTER VIII THE FALL OF PRIDE Jeremiah 13:1-27 THIS discourse is a sort of appendix to the preceding; as is indicated by its abrupt and brief beginning with the words "Thus said Iahvah unto me," without the addition of any mark of time, or other determining circumstance. It predicts captivity, in retribution for the pride and ingratitude of the people; and thus suitably follows the closing section of the last address, which announces the coming deportation of Judah and her evil neighbours. The recurrence here ( Jeremiah 13:9 ) of the peculiar term rendered "swelling" or "pride" in our English versions, { Jeremiah 12:5 } points to the same conclusion. We may subdivide it thus: It presents us with (1) a symbolical action, or acted parable, with its moral and application ( Jeremiah 13:1-11 ); (2) a parabolic saying and its interpretation, which leads up to a pathetic appeal for penitence ( Jeremiah 13:12-17 ); (3) a message to the sovereigns ( Jeremiah 13:18-19 ); and (4) a closing apostrophe to Jerusalem-the gay and guilty capital, so soon to be made desolate for her abounding sins ( Jeremiah 13:20-27 ). In the first of these four sections, we are told how the prophet was bidden of God to buy a linen girdle, and after wearing it for a time, to bury it in a cleft of the rock at a place whose very name might be taken to symbolise the doom awaiting his people. A long while afterwards he was ordered to go and dig it up again, and found it altogether spoiled and useless. The significance of these proceedings is clearly enough explained. The relation between Israel and the God of Israel had been of the closest kind. Iahvah had chosen this people, and bound it to Himself by a covenant, as a man might bind a girdle about his body; and as the girdle is an ornament of dress, so had the Lord intended Israel to display His glory among men ( Jeremiah 13:11 ). But now the girdle is rotten; and like that rotten girdle will He cause the pride of Judah to rot and perish ( Jeremiah 13:9-10 ). It is natural to ask whether Jeremiah really did as he relates; or whether the narrative about the girdle be simply a literary device intended to carry a lesson home to the dullest apprehension. If the prophet’s activity had been confined to the pen; if he had not been wont to labour by word and deed for the attainment of his purposes; the latter alternative might be accepted. For mere readers, a parabolic narrative might suffice to enforce his meaning. But Jeremiah, who was all his life a man of action, probably did the thing he professes to have done, not in thought, nor in word only, but in deed and to the knowledge of certain competent witnesses. There was nothing novel in this method of attracting attention, and giving greater force and impressiveness to his prediction. The older prophets had often done the same kind of things, on the principle that deeds may be more effective than words. What could have conveyed a more vivid sense of the Divine intention, than the simple act of Ahijah the Shilonite, when he suddenly caught away the new mantle of Solomon’s officer, and rent it into twelve pieces, and said to the astonished courtier, "Take thee ten pieces! for thus saith Iahvah, the God of Israel, Behold I am about to rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give the ten tribes to thee?" { 1 Kings 11:29 sqq.} in like manner when Ahab and Jehoshaphat, dressed in their robes of state, sat enthroned in the gateway of Samaria, and "all the prophets were prophesying before them" about the issue of their joint expedition to Ramoth-gilead, Zedekiah, the son of a Canaanitess-as the writer is careful to add of this false prophet-"made him horns of iron, and said, Thus said Iahvah, With these shalt thou butt the Arameans, until thou make an end of them." { 1 Kings 22:11 } Isaiah, Hosea, and Ezekiel, record similar actions of symbolical import. Isaiah for a time walked half-clad and bare foot, as a sign that the Egyptians and Ethiopians, upon whom Judah was inclined to lean, would be led away captive, in this comfortless guise, by the king of Assyria. { Isaiah 20:1-6 } Such actions may be regarded as a further development of those significant gestures, with which men in what is called a state of nature are wont to give emphasis and precision to their spoken ideas. They may also be compared with the symbolism of ancient law. "An ancient conveyance," we are told, "was not written but acted. Gestures and words took the place of written technical phraseology, and any formula mispronounced, or symbolical act omitted, would have vitiated the proceeding as fatally as a material mistake in stating the uses or setting out the remainders would, two hundred years ago, have vitiated an English deed" (Maine, "Ancient Law," p. 276) Actions of a purely symbolical nature surprise us, when we first encounter them in Religion or Law, but that is only because they are survivals. In the ages when they originated, they were familiar occurrences in all transactions between man and man. And this general consideration tends to prove that those expositors are wrong who maintain that the prophets did not really perform the symbolical actions of which they speak. Just as it is argued that the visions which they describe are merely a literary device; so the reality of these symbolical actions has needlessly enough been called in question. The learned Jews Abenezra and Maimonides in the twelfth century, and David Kimehi in the thirteenth, were the first to affirm this opinion. Maimonides held that all such actions passed in vision before the prophets; a view which has found a modern advocate in Hengstenberg: and Staudlin, in the last century, affirmed that they had neither an objective nor a subjective reality, but were simply a "literary device." This, however, is only true, if true at all, of the declining period of prophecy, as in the case of the visions. In the earlier period, while the prophets were still accustomed to an oral delivery of their discourses, we may be quite sure that they suited the action to the word in the way that they have themselves recorded; in order to stir the popular imagination, and to create a more vivid and lasting impression. The narratives of the historical books leave no doubt about the matter. But in later times, when spoken addresses had for the most part become a thing of the past, and when prophets published their convictions in manuscript, it is possible that they were content with the description of symbolical doings, as a sort of parable, without any actual performance of them. Jeremiah’s hiding his girdle in a cleft of the rock at "Euphrates" has been regarded by some writers as an instance of such purely ideal symbolism. And certainly it is difficult to suppose that the prophet made the long and arduous journey from Jerusalem to the Great River for such a purpose. It is, however, a highly probable conjecture that the place whither he was directed to repair was much nearer home; the addition of a single letter to the name rendered "Euphrates" gives the far preferable reading "Ephrath," that is to say. Bethlehem in Judah. { Genesis 48:7 } Jeremiah may very well have buried his girdle at Bethlehem, a place only five miles or so to the south of Jerusalem; a place, moreover, where he would have no trouble in finding a "cleft of the rock," which would hardly be the case upon the alluvial banks of the Euphrates. If not accidental, the difference may be due to the intentional employment of an unusual form of the name, by way of hinting at the source whence the ruin of Judah was to flow. The enemy "from the north" ( Jeremiah 13:20 ) is of course the Chaldeans. The mention of the queen mother ( Jeremiah 13:18 ) along with the king appears to point unmistakably to the reign of Jehoiachin or Jechoniah. The allusion is compared with the threat of Jeremiah 22:26 : "I will cast thee out, and thy mother that bare thee into another country." Like Josiah, this king was but eight years old when he began to reign ( 2 Chronicles 36:9 , after 2 Kings 24:8 must be corrected); and he had enjoyed the name of king only for the brief period of three months, when the thunderbolt fell, and Nebuchadrezzar began his first siege of Jerusalem. The boy-king can hardly have had much to do with the issue of affairs, when "he and his mother and his servants and his princes and his eunuchs" surrendered the city, and were deported to Babylon, with ten thousand of the principal inhabitants. { 2 Kings 24:12 sqq.} The date of our discourse will thus be the beginning of the year B.C. 599, which was the eighth year of Nebuchadrezzar. { 2 Kings 24:12 } It is asserted, indeed, that the difficult Jeremiah 13:21 refers to the revolt from Babylon as an accomplished fact; but this is by no means clear from the verse itself. "What wilt thou say (demands the prophet) when He shall appoint over thee-albeit, thou thyself hast instructed them against thyself; -lovers to be thy head?" The term "lovers" or "lemans" applies best to the foreign idols, who will one day repay the foolish attachment of Iahvah’s people by enslaving it; {cf. Jeremiah 3:4 , where Iahvah Himself is called the "lover" of Judah’s youthful days} and this question might as well have been asked in the days of Josiah, as at any later period. At various times in the past Israel and Judah had courted the favour of foreign deities. Ahaz had introduced Aramean and Assyrian novelties; Manasseh and Amon had revived and aggravated his apostasy. Even Hezekiah had had friendly dealings with Babylon, and we must remember that in those times friendly intercourse with a foreign people implied some recognition of their gods, which is probably the true account of Solomon’s chapels for Tyrian and other deities. The queen of Jeremiah 13:18 might conceivably be Jedidah, the mother of Josiah, for that king was only eight at his accession, and only thirty-nine at his 2 Kings 22:1 . And the message to the sovereigns ( Jeremiah 13:18 ) is not couched in terms of disrespect nor of reproach: it simply declares the imminence of overwhelming disaster, and bids them lay aside their royal pomp, and behave as mourners for the coming woe. Such words might perhaps have been addressed to Josiah and his mother, by way of deepening the impression produced by the Book of the Law, and the rumoured invasion of the Scythians. But the threat against "the kings that sit on David’s throne" ( Jeremiah 13:13 ) is hardly suitable on this supposition; and the ruthless tone of this part of the address-"I will dash them in pieces, one against another, both the fathers and the sons together: I will not pity, nor spare, nor relent from destroying them"-considered along with the emphatic prediction of an utter and entire captivity ( Jeremiah 13:19 ), seems to indicate a later period of the prophet’s ministry, when the obduracy of the people had revealed more fully the hopelessness of his enterprise for their salvation. The mention of the enemy "from the north" will then be a reference to present circumstances of peril, as triumphantly vindicating the prophet’s former menaces of destruction from that quarter. The carnage of conquest and the certainty of exile are here threatened in the plainest and most direct style; but nothing is said by way of heightening the popular terror of the coming destroyer. The prophet seems to take it for granted that the nature of the evil which hangs over their heads is well known to the people, and does not need to be dwelt upon or amplified with the lyric fervour of former utterances (see Jeremiah 4:1-31 , Jeremiah 5:15 sqq., Jeremiah 6:22 sqq.). This appears quite natural, if we suppose that the first invasion of the Chaldeans was now a thing of the past; and that the nation was awaiting in trembling uncertainty the consequences of Jehoiakim’s breach of faith with his Babylonian suzerain. { 2 Kings 24:10 } The prophecy may therefore be assigned with some confidence to the short reign of Jehoiachin, to which perhaps the short section, Jeremiah 10:17-25 , also belongs; a date which harmonises better than any other with the play on the name Euphrates in the opening of the chapter. It agrees, too, with the emphatic "Iahvah hath spoken!" ( Jeremiah 13:15 ), which seems to be more than a mere assertion of the speaker’s veracity, and to point rather to the fact that the course of events had reached a crisis; that something had occurred in the political world which suggested imminent danger; that a black cloud was looming up on the national horizon, and signalling most unmistakably to the prophet’s eye the intention of Iahvah. What other view so well explains the solemn tone of warning, the vivid apprehension of danger, the beseeching tenderness, that give so peculiar a stamp to the three verses in which the address passes from narrative and parable to direct appeal? "Hear ye and give ear: be not proud: for Iahvah hath spoken! Give glory to Iahvah your God"-the glory of confession, of avowing your own guilt and His perfect righteousness; { Joshua 7:19 ; St. John 9:24 } of recognising the due reward of your deeds in the destruction that threatens you; the glory involved in the cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"-"Give glory to Iahvah your God before the darkness fall, and before your feet stumble upon the twilight mountains; and ye wait for dawn, and He make it deepest gloom, He turn it to utter darkness." The day was declining; the evening shadows were descending and deepening; soon the hapless people would be wandering bewildered in the twilight, and lost in the darkness, unless, ere it had become too late, they would yield their pride, and throw themselves upon the pity of Him who "maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the deepest gloom into morning". { Amos 5:8 } The verbal allusiveness of the opening section does not, according to Oriental taste, diminish the solemnity of the speaker; on the contrary, it tends to deepen the impression produced by his words. And perhaps there is a psychological reason for the fact, beyond the peculiar partiality of Oriental peoples for such displays of ingenuity. It is, at all events, remarkable that the greatest of all masters of human feeling has not hesitated to make a dying prince express his bitter and desponding thoughts in what may seem an artificial toying and trifling with the suggestiveness of his own familiar name: and when the king asks: "Can sick men play so nicely with their names?" the answer is: "No; misery makes sport to mock itself" (Rich. #II, Acts 2:1-47 , Sc. 1:72 sqq.). The Greek tragedian, too, in the earnestness of bitter sport, can find a prophecy in a name. "Who was for naming her thus, with truth so entire? (Was it One whom we see not, wielding tongue happily with full foresight of what was to be?) the Bride of Battles, fiercely contested Helen: seeing that, in full accord with her name, haler of ships, haler of men, haler of cities, forth of the soft and precious tapestries away she sailed, under the gale of the giant West" (AEsch., "Ag.," 68, sqq.). And so, to Jeremiah’s ear, Ephrath is prophetic of Euphrates, upon whose distant banks the glory of his people is to languish and decay. "I to Ephrath, and you to Phrath!" is his melancholy cry. Their doom is as certain as if it were the mere fulfilment of an old world prophecy, crystallised long ages ago in a familiar name; a word of destiny fixed in this strange form, and bearing its solemn witness from the outset of their history until now concerning the inevitable goal. There is nothing so very surprising, as Ewald seems to have thought, in the suggestion that the Perath of the Hebrew text may be the same as Ephrath. But perhaps the valley and spring now called Furah (or Furat ) which lies at about the same distance N.E. of Jerusalem, is the place intended by the prophet. The name, which means fresh or sweet water, is identical with the Arabic name of the Euphrates ( Furat ), which again is philologically identical with the Hebrew Perath . It is obvious that this place would suit the requirements of the text quite as well as the other, while the coincidence of name enables us to dispense with the supposition of an unusual form or even a corruption of the original; but Furat or Forah is not mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament. The old versions send the prophet to the river Euphrates, which Jeremiah calls simply "The River" in one place, { Jeremiah 2:18 } and "The river of Perath " in three others; { Jeremiah 46:2 ; Jeremiah 46:6 ; Jeremiah 46:10 } while the rare " Perath ," without any addition, is only found in the second account of the Creation, { Genesis 2:14 } in 2 Chronicles 35:20 , and in a passage of this book which does not belong, nor profess to belong, to Jeremiah. { Jeremiah 51:63 } We may, therefore, conclude that " Perath " in the present passage means not the great river of that name, but a place near Jerusalem, although that place was probably chosen with the intention, as above explained, of alluding to the Euphrates. I cannot assent to the opinion which regards this narrative of the spoiled girdle as founded upon some accidental experience of the prophet’s life, in which he afterwards recognised a Divine lesson. The precision of statement, and the nice adaptation of the details of the story to the moral which the prophet wished to convey, rather indicate a symbolical course of action, or what may be called an acted parable. The whole proceeding appears to have been carefully thought out beforehand. The intimate connection between Iahvah and Israel is well symbolised by a girdle-that part of an Easter dress which "cleaves to the loins of a man," that is, fits closest to the body, and is most securely attached thereto. And if the nations be represented by the rest of the apparel, as the girdle secures and keeps that in its place, we may see an implication that Israel was intended to be the chain that bound mankind to God. The girdle was of linen, the material of the priestly dress, not only because Jeremiah was a priest, but because Israel was called to be "a kingdom of priests," or the Priest among nations. { Exodus 19:6 } The significance of the command to wear the girdle, but not to put it into water, seems to be clear enough. The unwashed garment which the prophet continues to wear for a time represents the foulness of Israel; just as the order to bury it at Perath indicates what Iahvah is about to do with His polluted people. 1. The exposition begins with the words, "Thus will I mar the great pride of Judah and of Jerusalem!" The spiritual uncleanness of the nation consisted in the proud selfwill which turned a deaf ear to the warnings of Iahvah’s prophets, and obstinately persisted in idolatry ( Jeremiah 13:10 ). It continues: "For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so made I the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cleave unto Me, saith Iahvah; that they might become to Me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for an ornament". { Exodus 28:2 } Then their becoming morally unclean, through the defilements of sin, is briefly implied in the words, "And they obeyed not" ( Jeremiah 13:11 ). It is not the pride of the tyrant king Jehoiakim that is here threatened with destruction. It is the national pride which had all along evinced itself in rebellion against its heavenly King "the great pride of Judah and Jerusalem"; and this pride, inasmuch as it "trusted in man and made flesh its arm," { Jeremiah 17:5 } and boasted in a carnal wisdom, and material strength and riches, { Jeremiah 9:23 ; Jeremiah 21:13 } was to be brought low by the complete extinction of the national autonomy, and the reduction of a high-spirited and haughty race to the status of humble dependents upon a heathen power. 2. A parabolic saying follows, with its interpretation. "And say thou unto them this word: Thus saith Iahvah, the God of Israel: Every jar is wont to be filled (or shall be filled) with wine. And if they say unto thee, Are we really not aware that every jar is wont to be filled with wine? say thou unto them, Thus saith Iahvah, Lo, I am about to fill all the inhabitants of this land, and the kings that sit for David upon his throne, and the priests and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness; and I will dash them in pieces against one another, and the fathers and the sons together, saith Iahvah: I will not forbear nor spare nor pity, so as not to mar them" (cf. Jeremiah 13:7 , Jeremiah 13:9 ). The individual members of the nation, of all ranks and classes, are compared to earthenware jars, not "skins," as the LXX gives it, for they are to be "dashed in pieces," "like a potter’s vessel" ( Psalm 2:9 ; cf. Jeremiah 13:14 ). Regarding them all as ripe for destruction, Jeremiah exclaims, "Every jar is filled with wine," in the ordinary course of things; that is its destiny. His hearers answer with the mocking question, "Do you suppose that we don’t know that?" They would, of course, be aware that a prophet’s figure, however homely, covered an inner meaning of serious import; but derision was their favourite retort against unpopular truths. { Jeremiah 17:15 ; Jeremiah 20:7-8 } They would take it for granted that the thing suggested was unfavourable, from their past experience of Jeremiah. Their ill-timed banter is met by the instant application of the figure. They, and the kings then sitting on David’s throne, i.e., the young Jehoiachin and the queen mother Nehushta (who probably had all the authority if not the title of a regent), and the priests and prophets who fatally misled them by false teachings and false counsels, are the wine jars intended, and the wine that is to fill them is the wine of the wrath of God. { Psalm 75:8 ; Jeremiah 25:15 ; cf. Jeremiah 51:7 ; Revelation 16:19 ; Isaiah 19:14-15 } The effect is intoxication-a fatal bewilderment, a helpless lack of decision, an utter confusion and stupefaction of the faculties of wisdom and foresight, in the very moment of supreme peril. {cf. Isaiah 28:7 ; Psalm 60:5 } Like drunkards, they will reel against and overthrow each other. The strong term, "I will dash them in pieces," is used to indicate the deadly nature of their fall, and because the prophet has still in his mind the figure of the wine jars, which were probably amphorae, pointed at the end, like those depicted in Egyptian mural paintings so that they could not stand upright without support. By their fall they are to be utterly "marred" (the term used of the girdle, Jeremiah 13:9 ). But even yet one way of escape lies open. It is to sacrifice their pride, and yield to the will of Iahvah. "Hear ye and give ear, be not haughty! for Iahvah hath spoken: give ye to Iahvah your God the glory, before it grow dark (or He cause darkness), and before your feet stumble upon mountains of twilight; and ye wait for the dawn, and He make it gloom, turning it to cloudiness!". { Isaiah 5:30 ; Isaiah 8:20 ; Isaiah 8:22 ; Amos 8:9 } It is very remarkable that even now, when the Chaldeans are actually in the country, and blockading the strong places of southern Judah ( Jeremiah 13:19 ), which was the usual preliminary to an advance upon Jerusalem itself, { 2 Chronicles 12:4 ; 2 Chronicles 32:9 ; Isaiah 36:1-2 } Jeremiah should still speak thus; assuring his fellow citizens that confession and self-humiliation before their offended God might yet deliver them from the bitterest consequences of past misdoing. Iahvah had indeed spoken audibly enough, as it seemed to the prophet, in the calamities that had already befallen the country; these were an indication of more and worse to follow, unless they should prove efficacious in leading the people to repentance. If they failed, nothing would be left for the prophet but to mourn in solitude over his country’s ruin ( Jeremiah 13:17 ). But Jeremiah was fully persuaded that the Hand that had stricken could heal; the Power that had brought the invaders into Judah, could cause them to "return by the way that they had come". { Isaiah 37:34 } Of course such a view was unintelligible from the standpoint of unbelief; but then the standpoint of the prophets is faith. 3. After this general appeal for penitence, the discourse turns to the two exalted persons whose position and interest in the country were the highest of all: the youthful king, and the empress or queen mother. They are addressed in a tone which, though not disrespectful, is certainly despairing. They are called upon, not so much to set the example of penitence, {cf. Jonah 3:6 } as to take up the attitude of mourners { Job 2:13 ; Isaiah 3:26 ; Lamentations 2:10 ; Ezekiel 26:16 } in presence of the public disasters. "Say thou to the king and to the empress, Sit ye low on the ground! (lit. make low your seat; cf. Isaiah 7:1-25 for the construction) for it is fallen from your heads-your beautiful crown! { Lamentations 5:16 } The cities of the south are shut fast, and there is none that openeth: { Joshua 6:1 } Judah is carried away captive all of her, she is wholly carried away." There is no hope; it is in vain to expect help; nothing is left but to bemoan the irreparable. The siege of the great fortresses of the south country and the sweeping away of the rural population were sure signs of what was coming upon Jerusalem. The embattled cities themselves may be suggested by the fallen crown of beauty; Isaiah calls Samaria "the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim," { Isaiah 28:1 } and cities are commonly represented in ancient art by female figures wearing mural crowns. In that case, both verses are addressed to the sovereigns, and the second is exegetical of the first. As already observed, there is here no censure, but only sorrowful despair over the dark outlook. In the same way, Jeremiah’s utterance { Jeremiah 22:20 sqq.} about the fate of Jehoiachin is less a malediction than a lament. And when we further consider his favourable judgment of the first body of exiles, who were carried away with this monarch soon after the time of the present oracle (chapter 24), we may perhaps see reason to conclude that the surrender of Jerusalem to the Chaldeans on this occasion was partly due to his advice. The narrative of Kings, however, is too brief to enable us to come to any certain decision about the circumstances of Jehoiachin’s submission. { 2 Kings 24:10-12 } 4. From the sovereigns the prophet turns to Jerusalem. "Lift up thine eyes (O Jerusalem), and behold them that came from the north! Where is the flock that was given to thee, thy beautiful sheep? What wilt thou say when He shall appoint over thee-nay, thou thyself hast spurred them against thyself!-lovers { Jeremiah 3:4 ; Jeremiah 11:19 } for head? Will not pangs take thee, as a woman in travail?" Jerusalem sits upon her hills, as a beautiful shepherdess. The country towns and unwalled villages lay about her, like a fair flock of sheep and goats entrusted to her care and keeping. But now these have been destroyed and their pastures are made a silent solitude, and the destroyer is advancing against herself. What pangs of shame and terror will be hers, when she recognises in the enemy triumphing over her grievous downfall the heathen "friends" whose love she had courted so long! Her sin is to be her scourge. She shall be made the thrall of her foreign lovers. Iahvah will "appoint them over her"; { Jeremiah 15:3 ; Jeremiah 51:27 } they will become the "head," and she the "tail." { Deuteronomy 28:44 } Yet this will, in truth, be her own doing, not Iahvah’s; she has herself "accustomed them to herself," { Jeremiah 10:2 } or "instructed" or "spurred them on" against herself. { Jeremiah 2:33 ; Jeremiah 4:18 } The revolt of Jehoiakim, his wicked breach of faith with Nebuchadrezzar, had turned friends to enemies. { Jeremiah 4:30 } But the chief reference seems to be more general-the continual craving of Judah for foreign alliances and foreign worships. "And if thou say in thine heart, ‘Wherefore did these things befall me?’ through the greatness of thy guilt were thy skirts uncovered, thine heels violated { Nahum 3:5 } or exposed. Will a Cushite change his skin, or a leopard his spots? ye, too, are ye able to do good, O ye that are wont to do evil? If, amid the sharp throes of suffering, Jerusalem should still fail to recognise the moral cause of them, { Jeremiah 5:19 } she may be assured beforehand that her unspeakable dishonour is the reward of her sins; that is why "the virgin daughter of Sion" is surprised and ravished by the foe (a common figure: Isaiah 47:1-3 ). Sin has become so ingrained in her that it can no more be eradicated than the blackness of an African skin, or the spots of a leopard’s hide. The habit of sinning has become a second nature," and, like nature, is not to be expelled. {cf. Jeremiah 8:4-7 } The effect of use and wont in the moral sphere could hardly be expressed more forcibly, and Jeremiah’s comparison has become a proverb. Custom binds us all in every department of life; it is only by enlisting this strange influence upon the side of virtue, that we become virtuous. Neither virtue nor vice can be pronounced perfect, until the habit of either has become fixed and invariable. It is the tendency of habitual action of any kind to become automatic, and it is certain that sin may attain such a mastery over the active powers of a man that its indulgence may become almost an unconserous exercise of his will, and quite a matter of course. But this fearful result of evil habits does not excuse them at the bar of common sense, much less at the tribunal of God. The inveterate sinner, the man totally devoid of scruple, whose conscience is, as it were, "seared with a hot iron," is not on that account excused by the common judgment of his kind; the feeling he excites is not forbearance, but abhorrence; he is regarded not as a poor victim of circumstances over which he has no control, but as a monster of iniquity. And justly so; for if he has lost control of his passions, if he is no longer master of himself, but the slave of vice, he is responsible for the long course of self-indulgence which has made him what he is. The prophet’s comparison cannot be applied in support of a doctrine of immoral fatalism. The very fact that he makes use of it, implies that he did not intend to be understood in such a sense. "Will a Cushite change his skin, or a leopard his spots? Ye also (supposing such a change as that) will be able to do good, O ye that are taught (trained, accustomed) to do evil!" (perhaps the preferable rendering). Not only must we abstain from treating a rhetorical figure as a colourless and rigorous proposition of mathematical science; not only must we allow for the irony and the exaggeration of the preacher: we must also remember his object, which is, if possible, to shock his hearers into a sense of their condition, and to awaken remorse and repentance even at the eleventh hour. His last words ( Jeremiah 13:27 ) prove that he did not believe this result, improbable as it was, to be altogether impossible. Unless some sense of sin had survived in their hearts, unless the terms "good" and "evil," had still retained a meaning for his countrymen, Jeremiah would hardly have laboured still so strenuously to convince them of their sins. For the present, when retribution is already at the doors, when already the Divine wrath has visibly broken forth, his prevailing purpose is not so much to suggest a way of escape as to bring home to the heart and conscience of the nation the true meaning of the public calamities. They are the consequence of habitual rebellion against God. "And I will scatter them like stubble passing away to before: {cf. Jeremiah 19:10 } the wind of the wilderness. This is thy lot (fem. thine, O Jerusalem), the portion of thy measures (others: lap ) from Me, saith Iahvah; because thou forgattest Me, and didst trust in the Lie. And I also-I will surely strip thy skirts to thy face, and thy shame shall be seen! { Nahum 3:5 } Thine adulteries and thy neighings, the foulness of thy fornications upon the hills in the field { Jeremiah 3:2-6 }-I have seen thine abominations. For the construction, compare Isaiah 1:13 . Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! After how long yet wilt thou not become clean?". { 2 Kings 5:12-13 } That which lies before the citizens in the near future is not deliverance, but dispersion in foreign lands. The onset of the foe will sweep them away, as the blast from the desert drives before it the dry stubble of the cornfields. { Jeremiah

Then I went to Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it: and, beheld, the girdle was marred, it was profitable for nothing. Jeremiah 13:1-11 The cast-off girdle In many instances the prophets were bidden to do singular things, and among the rest was this: Jeremiah must take a linen girdle and put it about his loins, and wear it there till the people had noticed what he wore, and how long he wore it. This girdle was not to be washed; this was to be a matter observed of all observers, for it was a part of the similitude. Then he must make a journey to the distant river Euphrates, and take off his girdle and bury it there. When the people saw him without a girdle they would make remarks and ask what he had done with it; and he would reply that he had buried it by the river of Babylon. Many would count him mad for having walked so far to get rid of a girdle: two hundred and fifty miles was certainly a great journey for such a purpose. Surely he might have buried it nearer home, if he must needs bury it at all. Anon, the prophet goes a second time to the Euphrates, and they say one to another, The prophet is a fool: the spiritual man is mad. See what a trick he is playing. Nearly a thousand miles the man will have walked in order to hide a girdle, and to dig it up again. What next will he do? Whereas plain words might not have been noticed, this little piece of acting commanded the attention and excited the curiosity of the people. The record of this singular transaction has come to us, and we know that, as a part of Holy Scripture, it is full of instruction. Thousands of years will not make it so antique as to be valueless. The Word of the Lord never becomes old so as to lose its vigour; it as still as strong for all Divine purposes as when first of all Jehovah spoke it. I. In our text we have AN HONOURABLE EMBLEM of Israel and Judah: we may say, in these days, an emblem of the Church of God. 1. God had taken this people to be bound to Himself: He had taken them to be as near to Him as the girdle is to the Oriental when he binds it about his loins. The traveller in the East takes care that his girdle shall not go unfastened: he girds himself securely ere he commences his work or starts upon his walk; and God has bound His people round about Him so that they shall never be removed from Him "I in them" saith Christ, even as a man is in his girdle. "Who shall separate us?" saith Paul. Who shall ungird us from the heart and soul of our loving God? "They shall be Mine, saith the Lord." 2. But Jeremiah's girdle was a linen one: it was the girdle peculiar to the priests, for such was the prophet; he was "the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth." Thus the type represents chosen men as bound to God in connection with sacrifice. We are bound to the Most High for solemn priesthood to minister among the sons of men in holy things. The Lord Jesus is now blessing the sons of men as Aaron blessed the people, and we are the girdle with which He girds Himself in the act of benediction by the Gospel. 3. The girdle also is used by God always in connection with work. When Eastern men are about to work in real earnest they gird up their loins. When the Lord worketh righteousness in the earth it is by means of His chosen ones. When He publishes salvation, and makes known His grace, His saints are around Him. When sinners are to be saved it is by His people. when error is to be denounced, it is by our lips that He chooses to speak. When His saints are to be comforted, it is by those who have been comforted by His Holy Spirit, and who therefore tell out the consolations which they have themselves enjoyed. 4. Moreover, the girdle was intended for ornament. It does not appear that it was bound about the priest's loins under his garments, for if so it would not have been seen, and would not have been an instructive symbol: this girdle must be seen, since it was meant to be a type of a people who were to be unto God "for a people, and for a name, and for a praise and for a glory." Is not this wonderful beyond all wonder, that God should make His people His glory? But now, alas! we have to turn our eyes sorrowfully away from this surpassing glory. II. These people who might have been the glorious girdle of God displayed in their own persons A FATAL OMISSION. Did you notice it? Thus saith the Lord unto Jeremiah, "Go and get thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, and put it not in water." 1. Ah, me! there is the mischief: the unwashed girdle is the type of an unholy people who have never received the great cleansing. No nearness to God can save you if you have never been washed by the Lord Jesus. No official connection can bless you if you have never been washed in His most precious blood. Here is the alternative for all professors, — you must be washed in the blood of Christ, or be laid aside; which shall it be? 2. The prophet was bidden not to put it in water, which shows that there was not only an absence of the first washing, but there was no daily cleansing. We are constantly defiling our feet by marching through this dusty world, and every night we need to be washed. If you suffer a sin to lie on your conscience, you cannot serve God aright while it is there. If you have transgressed as a child, and you do not run and put your head into your Father's bosom and cry, "Father, I have sinned!" you cannot do God's work. 3. The more this girdle was used the more it gathered great and growing defilement. Without the atonement, the more we do the more we shall sin. Our very prayers will turn into sin, our godly things will gender evil. O Lord, deliver us from this! Save us from being made worse by that which should make us better. Let us be Thy true people, and therefore let us be washed that we may be clean, that Thou mayest gird Thyself with us. III. Very soon that fatal flaw in the case here mentioned led to A SOLEMN JUDGMENT. It was a solemn judgment upon the girdle, looking at it as a type of the people of Israel. 1. First, the girdle, after Jeremiah had made his long walk in it, was taken off from him and put away. This is a terrible thing to happen to any man. I would rather suffer every sickness in the list of human diseases than that God should put me aside as a vessel in which He has no pleasure, and say to me, "I cannot wear you as My girdle, nor own you as Mine before men." 2. After that girdle was laid aside, the next thing for it was hiding and burying. It was placed in a hole of the rock by the river of the captivity, and left there. Many a hypocrite has been served in that way. 3. And now the girdle spoils. It was put, I dare say, where the damp and the wet acted upon it; and so, when in about seventy days Jeremiah came back to the spot, there was nothing but an old rag instead of what had once been a pure white linen girdle. He says, "Behold the girdle was marred; it was profitable for nothing." So, if God were to leave any of us, the best men and the best women among us would soon become nothing but marred girdles, instead of being as fair white linen. 4. But the worst part of it is that this relates undoubtedly to many mere professors whom God takes off from Himself, laying them aside, and leaving them to perish. And what is His reason for so doing? He tells us this in the text: He says that this evil people refused to receive God's words. Dear friends, never grow tired of God's Word; never let any book supplant the Bible. Love every part of Scripture, and take heed to every word that God has spoken. Next to that, we are told that they walked in the imagination of their heart. That is a sure sign of the hypocrite or the false professor. He makes his religion out of himself, as a spider spins a web out of his own bowels: what sort of theology it is you can imagine now that you know its origin. Upon all this there followed actual transgression, — "They walked after other gods to serve them and to worship them." This happens also to the base professor. He keeps up the name of a Christian for a little while, and seems to be as God's girdle; but by and by he falls to worshipping gold, or drink, or lust. He turns aside from the infinitely glorious God, and so he falls from one degradation to another till he hardly knows himself. He becomes as a rotten girdle "which profiteth nothing." ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Nearness to God destroyed by sin E. Jerman. I. NEARNESS TO GOD. 1. These Jews were like a girdle bound upon the loins. Should have entwined themselves around God. So nations may be near — (1) In the great things that God had done for them. (2) In the covenant relation which He had entered into with them. (3) In the privileges which He had conferred upon them. 2. Man is near God. (1) By nature. Created in God's image. (2) Near to God's heart. (3) Near in God's care over him. (4) Near in the privileges of liberty, religion, knowledge, discipline, warning. (5) In a position to become eternally nearer by growing up into Christ. (6) Brought near for God's glory. II. HIS NEARNESS DESTROYED BY SIN. 1. Sin is the destroyer of nations as well as individuals. The Jews destroyed by idolatry, lust, selfishness, pride. 2. As of nations, so of individuals: sin will destroy them, unless resisted and cast out. 3. This destruction is voluntary. The sinner is a suicide. 4. God is represented as active in this destruction. (1) Not that God deserts the sinner first. (2) But, when measure of sin is full, God removes restraints, and sets in motion the agency of judgment. 5. This destruction will consist in — (1) Separation from God. (2) Utter corruption and rottenness.Learn — 1. The terrible power of sin. 2. To guard against it as our chief enemy. ( E. Jerman. ) Good reasons for singular conduct Good Words contains an excellent story about Professor Blackie by the editor, Dr. Donald Macleod: — "Professor Blackie frequently stayed at my house when lecturing in Glasgow. He was always at his best when one had him alone. One night we were sitting up together, he said in his brusque way: 'Whatever other faults I have, I am free from vanity.' An incredulous smile on my face roused him. 'You don't believe that: give me an instance.' Being thus challenged, I said: 'Why do you walk about flourishing a plaid continually? 'I'll give you the history of that, sir. When I was a poor man, and when my wife and I had our difficulties, she one day drew my attention to the thread-bare character of my surtout, and asked me to order a new one. I told her I could not afford it just then; when she went, like a noble woman, and put her own plaid shawl on my shoulders, and I have worn a plaid ever since in memory of her loving deed!'" The prophet Jeremiah must often have been looked upon as a man of eccentric conduct. But like Professor Blackie with his plaid shawl, he was not actuated by whims, fancy, or vanity. Jeremiah's warrant for the singular use to which he put his girdle was the authority and mandate of the Lord. This evil people which refuse to hear My words. Jeremiah 13:10 Rejecters of God's word John Hall, D. D. I. SENSATIONAL PREACHING: IN WHAT SENSE TO BE APPROVED. The style of this teaching of Jeremiah looks sensational. He is bidden to take a fine, new linen girdle — a most important and ornamental part of an Oriental gentleman's garments — and bury it for a time near the Euphrates. Taking it up afterwards, he was to exhibit it to the people of Judah and Jerusalem, with all the marks of injury and decay upon it, as a sign and type of the decline and decay that the Lord would bring on them in Babylon, when, parted from Him to whom they had been bound as a girdle to a man's body, they should be buried under the oppression and contempt of their proud and domineering captors. II. REJECTION OF THE DIVINE WORD. 1. Even the most highly favoured persons may reject God's Word. 2. The transgressors in such cases prefer their own imagination to God's revelations. Religion says to God, "Thy will be done." The natural heart says, "My will be done" — "Who is the Lord that I should obey Him?" 3. The moral influence of such perverseness is bad, progressively bad. Having cast off God, the human nature cannot stand up alone. It needs a support. It must worship. So it goes after other, and of course false, gods. Every sin has three distinct effects, apart from the punishment of the future:(1) It depraves and deteriorates the nature that sins. The brain is not broken, but strained; the marble is not fractured, but the eye of omniscience sees the flaw.(2) It familiarises with evil and goes so far towards making an evil habit.(3) It renders some other sin not only easier, but apparently necessary. "Having done one thing," says the sinner, "of course I had to do the other." 4. The effect of rejecting God's Word is lamentable in the extreme. If the fire of Divine anger burnt up that vine which He had planted, how will it be with the common tree of the forest? III. BY WHOM IS THE WORD OF THE LORD REJECTED? 1. In a certain strict and literal sense every unbeliever is an infidel, i.e. he is without faith. But many are without faith who yet assent to the general truths of God's Word. Many infidels have made it their own interest to impugn and deny Divine revelation. A man has broken its precepts — perhaps suffered socially in consequence — has not repented, but only been embittered, begins to count those who censure or condemn him first bigoted, narrow-minded, then pharisaical, and hypocritical or fanatical. They justify their action by the Scriptures, and he begins to transfer his dislike to the Scriptures, feels a pleasure in any doubt cast on them, flatters himself that to weaken them is to strengthen his case, and that contempt poured on them is respect won back for him. Hence the bitterest scoffers have often been the religiously trained sinners. 2. Sceptics are included among the rejecters of God's Word. Not that they are necessarily irreligious, or deniers of a Divine Being and of obligation to Him; but they deny the Scriptures as an authoritative revelation from Him and make nature a sufficient teacher. 3. If I include Romanism among the rejecters of God's Word, it must be with a qualification. That system admits the inspiration, Divine origin, and partial authority of God's Word, and so far as it can appeal to Scripture does so. Its sins in this regard are:(1) Putting up beside the Word tradition, which, like that of the Pharisees, makes the Word of God of no effect.(2) Making the authorisation of the Scripture depend on the Church, and constituting the Church the only expounder of Scripture.(3) And following from this, she withholds the Scriptures from her people. 4. The indifferent and unbelieving reject God's Word. You have heard it explained, read it, had it urged on you by beloved ones, now praising God in the rest of the saints. Have you believed it? Received Christ? Are you resting on Him? Doing His will? For if not, your condemnation is doubly sure. ( John Hall, D. D. ) God's girdle W. Whale. I. ISRAEL AND JUDAH CLAVE UNTO JEHOVAH AS A GIRDLE TO THE LOINS OF A MAN. 1. Unto His person for favour. 2. Unto His Word for direction and teaching. 3. Unto His promise for encouragement. 4. Unto His worship for devotion. II. ISRAEL AND JUDAH WERE THEN A PRAISE AND GLORY TO JEHOVAH. A girdle of strength and honour before the nations. 1. As opposed to the idolatries of the world. 2. As expressing obedience to Divine law. 3. As exhibiting the beneficial effects of true religion. III. ISRAEL AND JUDAH BECAME FAITHLESS AND DISOBEDIENT. 1. An evil people refusing to hear the Word. 2. A stubborn people going their own way. 3. A deluded people in vain imaginations. 4. An idolatrous people, like the nations less favoured, going after other gods to serve and worship them. IV. ISRAEL AND JUDAH BECOMING FAITHLESS, BECAME ALSO WEAK AND WORTHLESS. Went from prominence to obscurity, from freedom to captivity, from privilege to punishment. ( W. Whale. ) Cleaving unto God Christian Commonwealth. In Trinidad there are small oysters to be found that grow upon trees, or rather cluster round the roots of trees, in the river mouths. The little bivalves are so firmly attached that it is usual to saw down the trees in order to obtain the oysters, and such an attachment is typical of the ideal life of a Christian. He should love the Lord his God, and obey His voice, that he may cleave unto Him. God, who is the source of all life, will indeed be his life and the light of his days. As the strength of the tree is placed at the disposal of the oyster, so is the omnipotence of God offered to all who will trust Him. ( Christian Commonwealth. ) Which is good for nothing. Good for nothing W. Whale. I. DWELL UPON A PAINFUL FACT. All was done for them that could be, and yet good for nothing. II. POINT OUT THE CAUSE OF THEIR SAD CONDITION. 1. They refused to hear the Word of the Lord. 2. They followed the imagination of their hearts. 3. They became idolaters. III. SHOW WHAT THEY MIGHT HAVE BEEN AS A PEOPLE. 1. Separated from the nations as peculiarly the people of God. 2. Before the nations for the glory of Jehovah, as opposed to idols. 3. Among the nations as witnesses and examples. IV. PROCLAIM SOME UNIVERSAL TRUTHS. 1. Refusing to hear God's Word is proof that the people are all evil people. 2. An evil people will substitute a false worship for that which is true. 3. A false worship will produce and foster an erroneous religious life. 4. A people walking according to the imagination of their own hearts must be useless to themselves, to the world, to the Church, or to God. ( W. Whale. ) The unprofitableness of a sinful life I heard the other day a Sunday school address which pleased me much. The teacher, speaking to the boys, said, "Boys, here is a watch; what is it for?" "To tell the time." "Well," said he, "suppose my watch does not tell the time, what is it good for? Good for nothing, sir." Then he took out a pencil. "What is this pencil for?" "It is to write with, sir." "Suppose this pencil won't make a mark, what is it good for?" "Good for nothing, sir." Then he took out a pocket knife. "Boys, what is this for?" They were American boys, so they shouted, "To whittle with," — that is, to experiment on any substance that came in their way, by cutting a notch in it. "But," said he, "suppose it will not cut, what is the knife good for?" "Good for nothing, sir." Then the teacher said, "What is the chief end of man?" and they replied, "To glorify God." "But suppose a man does not glorify God, what is he good for?" "Good for nothing, sir." ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine? Jeremiah 13:12-14 Drunk with evil J. M. Campbell. They are supposed to think that the prophet is merely stating what was the plain meaning of the words, and, under that impression, to reply, What great matter is this, to tell us that bottles which are made to be filled with wine should be filled with wine? — not seeking for any deeper meaning in the Lord's Word. But, "thus saith the Lord, Behold I will fill all the inhabitants of this land." These were the bottles truly spoken of, "even the kings that sit upon David's throne," etc. Now the drunkenness wherewith they were to be filled was not drunkenness with wine, but drunkenness with an evil spirit, with a mad spirit, with a spirit of discontent, a breaking up of all the bonds of society, a spirit of contempt of God, and of all God's ordinances. This was the drunkenness wherewith they were to be filled — in consequence of which they were to be falling against, and crushing each other, as happens to a nation in which all subordination disappears, and all is anarchy and confusion, and the people are, as it were, dashed against each other. And this is said to be the Lord's judgment upon them. It is after the manner of God that, when men refuse the Spirit of God, they should be given up to the spirit of Satan; that, when men refuse to be dwelt in of the Holy Spirit, they should be dwelt in by the spirit of madness and of fury; and this was the judgment threatened upon the Jews, that they should be dashed one against another, even the fathers and the sons together; and then, as if he would say, Do not think that I am not in earnest; do not think that, because judgment is my strange work, it is a work in which I will not engage: be assured that it shall be as I say, "I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy." Three times God declares that He will not show mercy, but, on the contrary, destroy; because there is a voice which God has put within us to testify that God is merciful; and because there is a bad use which men are apt to make of the suggestions of that voice; and they are apt to feel as if a good and merciful God could not find it in His heart to put forth His hand to judgment. Oh, if men but knew God's tender mercy, they would indeed feel that that must be a strong reason which could move Him to pluck His hand from His bosom and rise up to wrath. It is as if God were saying — I have so proved My love to you, My unwillingness that you should perish, that ye may be slow to believe that I, even I, will punish. But be not deceived; there are reasons strong enough to prevail — to shut up even My compassions. I will not pity, nor spare, nor have compassion, but destroy. ( J. M. Campbell. ) The wine of the wrath of God W. Whale. 1. Every man is being fitted a vessel to honour or dishonour, to good or evil. 2. Every man will ultimately be filled to his utmost capacity by good or evil, according to his spiritual state. 3. The process of adaptation is being carried on by loyalty or disobedience to truth and God. 4. Where all are evil, everyone will be injurious to the others. This will make a hell. The reverse of this is true also. 5. God, who is love, has a time for severity as well as a time for mercy. 6. If God help not, none can aid effectually. ( W. Whale. ) I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the Lord. Divine punishments J. Parker, D. D. These words should be spoken with tears. It is a great mistake in doctrine as well as in practice to imagine that the imprecations of Holy Scripture should be spoken ruthlessly. When Jesus came near the city He wept over it. I. DIVINE PUNISHMENTS ARE POSSIBLE. If we are not destroyed, it is not for want of power on the part of the offended Creator. The universe is very sensitively put together in this matter; everywhere there are lying resources which under one touch or breath would spring up and avenge an outraged law. Now and then God does bring us to see how near death is to every life. We do not escape the rod because there is no rod. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. Think of that. Do let it enter into our minds and make us sober, sedate — if not religious and contrite. II. DIVINE PUNISHMENTS ARE HUMILIATING (ver. 13). Some punishments have a kind of dignity about them: sometimes a man dies almost heroically, and turns death itself into a kind of victory; and we cannot but consent that the time is well chosen, and the method the best for giving to the man's reputation completeness, and to his influence stability and progress. God can bring us to our latter end, as it were, nobly: we may die like princes; death may be turned into a kind of coronation; our deathbed may be the picture of our life — the most consummately beautiful and exquisite revelation of character — or the Lord can drive us down like mad beasts to an unconsecrated grave. How contemptuous He can be! How bitter, how intolerable the sarcasm of God! "I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh." The Lord seems now and again to take a kind of delight in showing how utterly our pride can be broken up and trampled underfoot. He will send a worm to eat up the harvest: would He but send an angel with a gleaming sickle to cut it down we might see somewhat of glory in the disaster. Thus God comes into our life along a line that may be designated as a line of contempt and humiliation. Oh, that men were wise, that they would hold themselves as God's and not their own, as Divine property rather than personal possession! Then would they walk soberly and recruit themselves in many a prayer, and bring back their youth because they trust in God. III. DIVINE PUNISHMENTS WHEN THEY COME ARE COMPLETE. "I will destroy them." We cannot tell the meaning of this word; we do not know what is meant by "destruction"; we use the term as if we knew its meaning, — and possibly we do know its meaning according to the breadth of our own intention and purpose; but the word as used by God has Divine meanings upon which we can lay no measuring line. We cannot destroy anything: we can destroy its form, its immediate relation, its temporary value; but the thing itself in its substance or in its essence we can never destroy. When the Lord says He will take up this matter of destruction we cannot tell what He means; we dare not think of it. We use the word "nothing," but cannot tell what He means by the nothingness of nothing, by the negativeness of negation, by the sevenfold darkness, by the heaped-up midnight of gloom. My soul, come not thou into that secret: IV. DIVINE PUNISHMENTS ARE AVOIDABLE (ver. 16). The door of hope is set open, even in this midnight of threatening; still we are on praying ground and on pleading terms with God; even now we can escape the bolt that gleams in the thundercloud. What say you, men, brethren, and fathers? Why be hard? why attempt the impossible? why think we can run away from God? and why, remembering that our days are but a handful, will we not be wise and act as souls that have been instructed? ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud: for the Lord hath spoken. Jeremiah 13:15-17 Jehovah hath spoken: will ye not hear? I. THERE IS A REVELATION. "For the Lord hath spoken." 1. The voice which we are bidden to hear is a Divine voice, it is the voice of Him that made the heavens and the earth, whose creatures we are. 2. It is a word most clear and plain, for Jehovah hath spoken. He might have taught us only by the works of His hands, in which the invisible things of God, even His eternal power and Godhead are clearly seen. What is all creation but a hieroglyphic scroll, in which the Lord has written out His character as Creator and Provider? But since He knew that we were dim of sight and dull of comprehension, the Lord has gone beyond the symbols and hieroglyphs, and used articulate speech such as a man useth with his fellow: Jehovah hath spoken! 3. Moreover, I gather from the expression in the text that the revelation made to us by the Lord is an unchangeable and abiding word. It is not today that Jehovah is speaking, but Jehovah hath spoken: His voice by the prophets and apostles is silent now, for He hath revealed all truth which is needful for salvation. 4. This revelation is preeminently a condescending and cheering word. The very fact that the great God speaks to us by His Son indicates that mercy, tenderness, love, hope, grace, are the burden of His utterance. II. Since there is a revelation, IT SHOULD BE SUITABLY RECEIVED. 1. If Jehovah hath spoken, then all attention should be given; yea, double attention, even as the text hath it, "Hear ye, and give ear." Hear, and hear again: incline your ear, hearken diligently, surrender your soul to the teaching of the Lord God; and be not satisfied till yea have heard His teaching, have heard it with your whole being, and have felt the force of its every truth. "Hear ye," because the word comes with power, and "give ear," because you willingly receive it. 2. Then it is added, as if by way of directing us how suitably to hear this revelation — "Give glory to Jehovah your God."(1) Glorify the Lord by accepting whatsoever He saith unto thee as being infallibly true. In all its length and breadth, whatsoever the Lord saith we believe; and we desire to know neither less nor more than He has spoken.(2) We must receive the word, however, in a hearty and honest manner so as to act upon it. We must therefore repent of the sin which the Lord condemns, and turn from the way which He abhors; we must loathe the vice which He forbids us, and seek after the virtue which He commands.(3) But we must go further than repentance and the acceptance of the truth as truth, we must further reverence the gracious voice of God when He bids us believe on Christ and live. He has couched that message of love in so blessed a form that he who does not accept it must be wantonly malicious against God and against his own soul. III. PRIDE IN THE HUMAN HEART PREVENTS SUCH A RECEPTION. 1. In some it is the pride of intellect. They do not wish to be treated like children. Things that are despised, hath God chosen, and things that are not, to bring to naught the things that are: that no flesh may glory in His presence. Oh, let none of us be so proud as to lift up ourselves in opposition to that which Jehovah hath spoken! 2. In some others it is the pride of self-esteem. It is a dreadful thing that men should think it better to go to hell in a dignified way than to go to heaven by the narrow road of a childlike faith in the Redeemer. Those who will not stoop even to receive Christ Himself and the blessings of eternal life deserve to perish. God save us from such folly! 3. Some have a pride of self-righteousness. They say "we see," and therefore their eyes are not opened: they cry "we are clean," and therefore they are not washed from their iniquity. 4. In some, too, it is the pride of self-love. They cannot deny their lusts. 5. The pride of self-will also works its share of ruin among men. The unrenewed heart virtually says — "I shall not mind these commands. Why should I be tied hand and foot, and ruled, and governed? I intend to be a free thinker and a free liver, and I will not submit myself." IV. HENCE THERE COMES AN EARNEST WARNING. "Give glory to the Lord your God, before He cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains." Listen, thou who hast rejected God and His Christ till now. Thou art already out of the way, among the dark mountains. There is a King's highway of faith, and thou hast refused it; thou hast turned aside to the right hand or to the left, according to thine own imagination. Being out of the way of safety, thou art in the path of danger even now. Though the sunlight shines about thee, and the flowers spring up profusely under thy feet, yet thou art in danger, for there is no safety out of the King's road. If thou wilt still pursue thy headlong career, and choose a path for thyself, I pray thee remember that darkness is lowering around thee. The day is far spent! Around thy soul there are hanging mists and glooms already, and these will thicken into the night-damps of bewilderment. Thinking but not believing, thou wilt soon think thyself into a horror of great darkness. Refusing to hear what Jehovah has spoken, thou wilt follow other voices, which shall allure thee into an Egyptian night of confusion. Upon whom wilt thou call in the day of thy calamity, and who will succour thee? Then thy thoughts will dissolve into vanity, and thy spirit shall melt into dismay. "Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends." Thou shalt grope after comfort as blind men grope for the wall, and because thou hast rejected the Lord and His truth, He also will reject thee and leave thee to thine own devices. Meanwhile, there shall overcloud thee a darkness bred of thine own sin and wilfulness. Thou shalt lose the brightness of thine intellect, the sharp clearness of thy thought shall depart from thee, professing thyself to be wise thou shalt become a fool. Thou shalt be in an all-surrounding, penetrating blackness. Hence comes the solemnity of this warning, "Give glory to the Lord your God, before He cause darkness." For after that darkness there comes a stumbling, as saith the text, "before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains." There must be difficulties in every man's way, even if it be a way of his own devising; but to the man that will not accept the light of God, these difficulties must necessarily be dark mountains with sheer abysses, pathless crags, and impenetrable ravines. He has refused the path which wisdom has cast up, and he is justly doomed to stumble where there is no way. Beware of encountering mysteries without guidance and faith, for you will stumble either into folly or superstition, and only rise to stumble again. Those who stumble at Christ's Cross are like to stumble into hell. Ther

13:1-11 It was usual with the prophets to teach by signs. And we have the explanation, ver. 9-11. The people of Israel had been to God as this girdle. He caused them to cleave to him by the law he gave them, the prophets he sent among them, and the favours he showed them. They had by their idolatries and sins buried themselves in foreign earth, mingled among the nations, and were so corrupted that they were good for nothing. If we are proud of learning, power, and outward privileges, it is just with God to wither them. The minds of men should be awakened to a sense of their guilt and danger; yet nothing will be effectual without the influences of the Spirit. 13:12-17 As the bottle was fitted to hold the wine, so the sins of the people made them vessels of wrath, fitted for the judgments of God; with which they should be filled till they caused each other's destruction. The prophet exhorts them to give glory to God, by confessing their sins, humbling themselves in repentance, and returning to his service. Otherwise they would be carried into other countries in all the darkness of idolatry and wickedness. All misery, witnessed or foreseen, will affect a feeling mind, but the pious heart must mourn most over the afflictions of the Lord's flock. 13:18-27 Here is a message sent to king Jehoiakim, and his queen. Their sorrows would be great indeed. Do they ask, Wherefore come these things upon us? Let them know, it is for their obstinacy in sin. We cannot alter the natural colour of the skin; and so is it morally impossible to reclaim and reform these people. Sin is the blackness of the soul; it is the discolouring of it; we were shapen in it, so that we cannot get clear of it by any power of our own. But Almighty grace is able to change the Ethiopian's skin. Neither natural depravity, nor strong habits of sin, form an obstacle to the working of God, the new-creating Spirit. The Lord asks of Jerusalem, whether she is determined not be made clean. If any poor slave of sin feels that he could as soon change his nature as master his headstrong lusts, let him not despair; for things impossible to men are possible with God. Let us then seek help from Him who is mighty to save.