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Jeremiah 10 — Commentary 4

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Benson Commentary Jeremiah 10:1 Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Jeremiah 10:1-2 . Hear ye the word, &c. — The prophet continues his remonstrances and exhortations to Judah. He said, at the conclusion of the preceding chapter, that the Lord would punish, without distinction, all the ungodly and unrighteous Jews, as well as Gentiles. He here informs them that if they would avoid this vengeance of the Lord they must quit their idolatries and other impieties, and have nothing to do with the superstitious practices of the Gentile nations. Learn not the way of the heathen — Their manner of life or customs. And be not dismayed at the signs of heaven — “The Chaldeans, among whom the Jews were destined to live in captivity, were particularly addicted to astrology, and attributed to the heavenly bodies a considerable influence over human affairs. This naturally tended to beget a religious dread and awe of those objects, from whence so much good or evil was supposed to be derived. The sun, moon, and planets are said indeed to have been set in the firmament for signs. Genesis 1:14 . But hereby is meant, that they should serve, as natural marks, to distinguish, by their periodical revolutions and appearances, the various times and seasons; which, however, is a very different use from that of prognosticating future events, or causing an alteration in the fortunes of men.” — Blaney. Jeremiah 10:2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. Jeremiah 10:3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. Jeremiah 10:3-5 . One cutteth down a tree, &c. — The prophet here exposes the folly of men’s worshipping the work of their own hands, by arguments similar to those which are used by Isaiah 44:10-20 ; where see the notes. They are upright, &c. — They are like the trunk of the palm-tree — Houb. “They are inflexible, immoveable, fixed, without action or motion, like the trunk of a tree: a comparison which admirably suits the ancient statues seen in Egypt and elsewhere, before the art of sculpture attained the perfection which it afterward did in Greece.” — Calmet. Dr. Waterland’s translation of this verse is, They are of just proportion, as a pillar, but they speak not; carried they must be, for go they cannot. Be not afraid of them — They can do you no more harm than the signs of heaven could do. The heathen worshipped some idols in order that they might do them good, and others, that they might do them no harm: but God tells them here, that as they cannot do evil, so neither is it in them to do good. See note on Isaiah 41:23 . They can neither punish nor reward; they can neither hurt their enemies nor help their friends. By this the true God will be distinguished from idols, in that he alone can foretel things to come, and he alone can reward or punish. Jeremiah 10:4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. Jeremiah 10:5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good. Jeremiah 10:6 Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O LORD; thou art great, and thy name is great in might. Jeremiah 10:6-7 . Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee — This verse would be better rendered, O Lord, thou art great, so that there is none like unto thee, and thy name is great, because of thy might. Who would not fear thee? — Rather, who would not reverence, or stand in awe of thee? For to thee doth it appertain — That is, as some interpret the phrase, To thee doth it appertain to be feared and reverenced; to thee fear and reverence are due. The Hebrew, however, may be rendered, Who would not fear thee when he shall come, or draw near to thee? accordingly Blaney translates the verse thus: Who will not fear thee, O king of nations, when he shall approach unto thee? Forasmuch as among all the wisest of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee — On the clause, among the wisest of the nations, he observes, “These words may signify, either all those nations which were most distinguished for the cultivation and improvement of their rational faculties; or else those sage individuals among them, from whose learning and philosophy some better notions of God and religion might have been expected than from the rude and illiterate vulgar. And yet the fact was, that all their boasted wisdom and knowledge had failed of leading them to an object of worship, in any degree corresponding with the infinite perfections and majesty of the divine nature.” Jeremiah 10:7 Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee. Jeremiah 10:8 But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities. Jeremiah 10:8 . But they are altogether brutish — Or, all alike brutish. They that make images, saith the psalmist, Psalm 115:8 , are like unto them, equally stupid and insensible. The stock is a doctrine of vanities — Or lies. The use of images in worship is grounded on a false and foolish opinion, that God is like the work of men’s hands, and that images have some divine power lodged within them, and in this opinion it has a direct tendency to confirm the ignorant. Hence an image is called by Habakkuk, A teacher of lies. Instead of the stock, &c., Dr. Waterland reads, Vain institutions! very wood! Blaney, in consistency with his interpretation of the 7th verse, given above, renders this, But they, when they approach, (namely, to worship,) are stupid and sottish, the very wood itself being a rebuker of vanities. On which he observes, “The contrast is thus strongly marked between the true God, and the objects of heathen superstition. The servants of the former, when they approached him in their devotions, could not but be impressed with a reverential awe of a being so transcendently glorious. But those who drew near to worship the latter, manifested the greatest stupidity, in not discovering what was so obvious to common apprehension, the gross unworthiness of the objects to which their adorations were addressed.” On the latter clause, The very wood itself, &c., he remarks, “The true meaning and force of this passage seem to have escaped the notice of all the commentators. ???? , (which our translators render doctrine, ) properly signifies rectifying, or correcting, a false notion by just reproof; and by vanities are meant idols, so called from their being of no real use or advantage to those who had recourse to their assistance. And this unprofitableness of the idol, the very dull and senseless matter, says the prophet, out of which it was formed, is capable of demonstrating. But the rebuke, strictly speaking, is not directed to the idol, but to those who had not sense to perceive, that all the efforts of human art could never change an inanimate log of wood into an animated being, possessed of power and intelligence far surpassing those of the person from whom its origin was derived. There are, therefore, an energy and pointedness in this short sentence, at least equal to whatever has been said on the same subject by the most spirited writer, whether sacred or profane. Not even the keen raillery of the Roman satirist in those celebrated lines, olim truncus eram, &c., cuts with greater severity.” See note on Isaiah 44:12 , &c. Jeremiah 10:9 Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue and purple is their clothing: they are all the work of cunning men . Jeremiah 10:9 . Silver spread into plates — To cover the images, and make them appear as if made of massy silver; is brought from Tarshish — A port of Spain, to which the merchants of Tyre and Sidon traded; of which place see note on Isaiah 2:16 . And gold from Uphaz — The Syriac, Chaldee, and Theodotion read, from Ophir, which Bochart supposes to be here meant; namely, Ophir in India, near Zeilan, a place famous for gold. Blue and purple are their clothing — “The splendour and magnificence of dress seem, among the ancients, to have consisted very much in the richness of the colours; the art of dying which to perfection, was esteemed a matter of great skill, being known and practised by very few. The excellence of the Tyrian purple is celebrated by both sacred and profane authors. And the blue, which from many passages of Scripture we find to have been in great request, was also imported from remote countries as an article of elegant and expensive luxury.” They are all the work of cunning men — “If, in the preceding verse, the insignificance of the idols was argued from the vile and perishable matter out of which they were composed; the same is inferred in this from their being indebted to the art and labour of man for all their costly ornaments, their splendid outward show. In short, the whole of them, says the prophet, internal and external, is the work of skilful men. Upon what ground then could the thing formed pretend to a nature more excellent than its former?” — Blaney. Jeremiah 10:10 But the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation. Jeremiah 10:10 . But the Lord — Hebrew, Jehovah, is the true God — A very different being from these idols. He is the living God — Images are dead and senseless things; but Jehovah is life itself, and the author and fountain of life and understanding; and all creatures that live, live in and by him. And an everlasting King — The absolute monarch over all creatures, their owner and ruler, having an incontestable right both to command and to dispose of them. And the counsels of his kingdom were from everlasting, and the continuance of it will be to everlasting. He is the king of eternity. The idols whom they call their kings are but of yesterday, and will soon be abolished; and the kings of the earth, that set them up to be worshipped, will themselves be in the dust shortly; but the Lord shall reign for ever, thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. At his wrath the earth shall tremble — Even the strongest and stoutest of the kings of the earth, nay, the earth itself, as firmly as it is fixed, when he pleases, is made to quake, and the rocks to tremble. And the nations, though they join together to contend with him, and unite their force against him, shall be found utterly unable, not only to resist, but even to abide his indignation. Jeremiah 10:11 Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. Jeremiah 10:11 . Thus shall ye say unto them — “This verse is in the Chaldee language, and it appears here as a kind of parenthesis. Houbigant thinks that the most probable reason why it is here inserted in the Chaldee, and not in the Hebrew, is, that Jeremiah prescribes to the Jews what they shall answer in living among idolaters, and using the Chaldee language; hereby prescribing that they should be the captives of the Chaldees.” — Dodd. The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth — And therefore they are no gods, but the usurpers of the honour due to him only who did make them; shall perish from the earth, &c. — Shall perish of course, because they are vanity, formed of perishing materials; and shall perish by his righteous sentence, because they are rivals with him who made all things. Here the prophet foretels that there shall be a final period put to idolatry. God hath already blotted out the names of many of the heathen idols, as an earnest of the utter destruction of the rest in his due time. Jeremiah 10:12 He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion. Jeremiah 10:12-13 . He hath made the earth, &c. — Here follows a noble and lofty description of God’s power and providence, whereby he sets forth his infinite pre-eminence above all the dead and senseless idols of the world. When he uttereth his voice, &c. — When he gives the word of command, and signifies his will and pleasure: see Job 38:34 . Or, when he sends forth his thunder, called in Scripture the voice of God, the clouds immediately precipitate in torrents of rain, which, coming upon the ground that was scorched with heat before, not only cools and refreshes it, but renders it fruitful in all kinds of vegetable productions. He maketh lightnings with rain — And as he causes the vapours to ascend up in clouds from every quarter of the earth, so he joins two contrary things together, ordaining great flashes of lightning to break forth with the rain; the latter, by its moisture, preventing the ill effects that might otherwise proceed from the heat of the former. And bringeth forth the winds out of his treasures — As there is occasion for them, directing them all in such measures, and for such uses, as he thinks fit. In other words, “He makes great and mighty winds to come from unknown places and causes, as if he brought them out of a hidden treasure, or repository, where they had been laid up till he had occasion for them.” — Lowth. Jeremiah 10:13 When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures. Jeremiah 10:14 Every man is brutish in his knowledge: every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. Jeremiah 10:14-15 . Every man is brutish in his knowledge — This is spoken of the makers of idols, whose skilfulness as workmen made them foolish enough to attempt to make gods, and who afterward acted still more foolishly in worshipping them, when they knew they were but the work of their own hands. The founder is confounded by the graven image — Or, ashamed, as ????? signifies. For it can afford no help, nor do any good, to those who worship it; and therefore is a disgrace to the workman who pretends to make it a god, that could hear the prayers offered to it, and send help to its worshippers. His molten image is falsehood — That is, those are no less deceived who expect help from a molten image, than they who expect it from a false, lying man. They are the work of errors — The making of them is owing to men’s erroneous notions of the nature of God. In the time of their visitation they shall perish — The time will come when God will execute vengeance upon idolaters, and utterly destroy their idols. Jeremiah 10:15 They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish. Jeremiah 10:16 The portion of Jacob is not like them: for he is the former of all things ; and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: The LORD of hosts is his name. Jeremiah 10:16 . The portion of Jacob is not like them — There is no comparison between senseless idols and the great Creator of all things, who has chosen the posterity of Jacob for his peculiar people, and has promised to be their God, and that they should always have an especial interest in his favour, if they continued steadfast in their worship of, and obedience to, him. The rod of his inheritance — Is an expression taken from the first division of the land of Canaan, when the inheritance of each tribe and family was meted out with a line or rod. Jeremiah 10:17 Gather up thy wares out of the land, O inhabitant of the fortress. Jeremiah 10:17-18 . Gather up thy wares, &c. — That is, as some explain it, “Collect to Jerusalem all that you have valuable in the country; flee thither for refuge with your best effects; for the enemy will soon extend himself over all your land, and render it desolate.” Or, rather, the prophet, returning to his former denunciations against Jerusalem, warns her to move her effects, and prepare for going into captivity; for, though she thought herself secure, as dwelling in a place of great strength and well fortified, yet her enemies should prevail and take it: compare Ezekiel 12:3 . Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants at this once — I will, at one stroke, remove the whole body of this people out of their native country: see 1 Samuel 25:29 . And I will distress them that they may find it so — Or, that they may find my threatenings to be true. This implies, that though they had been often saved by God’s providence from hostile attacks, they would, however, on this occasion, find it otherwise. Jeremiah 10:18 For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this once, and will distress them, that they may find it so . Jeremiah 10:19 Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it. Jeremiah 10:19-20 . Wo is me for my hurt — The prophet here again pathetically laments the overthrow of his country, and, either in his own person or in that of his country, bewails the plundering and desolation of the cities and houses, as if they were so many shepherds’ tents, to which he compares them, Jeremiah 10:20 . But I said, This is a grief, and I must bear it — Blaney thinks the prophet here suggests motives of patience and consolation to his country, in regard to the evils that were coming upon her, putting the words of this and the following verses into her mouth, and making her observe, first, That her affliction, though great, would yet be found tolerable; secondly, That she had less reason to complain of what she suffered, as it was no other than might have been expected from the misconduct of those who had the direction of her affairs, Jeremiah 10:21 ; and, lastly, That she was not without hope in the mercy of God, who, upon the humble supplication of his people, might be moved to mitigate their chastisement, and to turn his hand against the heathen that oppressed them, Jeremiah 10:24 . My children are gone from me, and are not, &c. — My inhabitants are gone into captivity, and will return hither no more, so that they are the same to me as if they were dead. There is none to set up my curtains — They will never be able to contribute any thing to the restoration of my former state. Jeremiah 10:20 My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains. Jeremiah 10:21 For the pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the LORD: therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered. Jeremiah 10:21-22 . For the pastors are become brutish — The prophet pursues the foregoing metaphor, and says, that the reason why the tents are destroyed, is because the shepherds, meaning the governors, both civil and ecclesiastical, had, like so many brute creatures, forgotten God and their duty to him, and thereby engaged the people committed to their charge in idolatry, and in all manner of wickedness, which had ended in ruin to themselves and their flocks. And have not sought the Lord — Have neither made their peace with him nor addressed their prayers to him; they have had no eye to him and his providence in their management of affairs, have neither acknowledged the judgment nor expected the deliverance to come from his hand. Observe well, reader, those are brutish people that do not seek the Lord, that live without prayer and without God in the world: they are unworthy of the name of rational beings. But the state of a people is indeed deplorable when their pastors, that should feed them with knowledge and understanding, are themselves thus brutish. And what is the consequence? Therefore they shall not prosper — None of their attempts for the public safety shall succeed. How, indeed, can those expect to prosper who do not take God along with them in their ways? And when the pastors are brutish, what else can be expected but that all their flocks should be scattered? for if the blind lead the blind both will fall into the ditch. Behold, the noise of the bruit is come — The word bruit here signifies noise, or rumour, which is the meaning of the Hebrew, ?????? . This is explained in the following clause to be that of the tumultuary invasion of the country by the Chaldeans from the north, of which notice had been repeatedly given. Blaney translates the verse, Hark! a noise! Behold, it advanceth, even a great commotion from the north country. To make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling-place for dragons. Jeremiah 10:22 Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons. Jeremiah 10:23 O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. Jeremiah 10:23 . O Lord, I know, &c. — The prophet now turns to God, and addresses himself to him, finding it to little purpose to speak to the people. It is some comfort to poor ministers, that, if men will not hear them, God will; and to him they have liberty of access at all times. Let them close their preaching with prayer, as the prophet here does, and then they will have no reason to complain that they have laboured in vain. That the way of man is not in himself — The prophet must here be considered as acknowledging the superintendence and dominion of the divine providence; that by it, and not by their own will and wisdom, the affairs both of nations and particular persons are directed and governed. His words in this verse, taken in connection with the following, may be thus paraphrased: Thy providence, O Lord, superintends all events; all that happens comes to pass through thy permission or appointment. It is not in man to hinder that which has been once resolved on in thy decrees. We know, therefore, that it is not in our power to divert those judgments which are coming upon us, but thou canst moderate and limit them as thou pleasest. If, then, it be thy will that we should feel the awful effects of thy justice, chastise us, but spare our weakness; correct us, but with judgment, not in thine anger, &c. Theodoret applies this to Nebuchadnezzar, and explains the passage thus: “We know, O Lord, that the prince whom thou sendest against us comes not without thy orders; that the success of his arms, and the good fortune of his enterprise, proceed only from thee: but deliver us, O Lord, from this terrible enemy; and if we have merited chastisement, may we receive it at thy hand. Punish us as a father, and not as a judge.” The words, however, are applicable to us all, as well as to Nebuchadnezzar and the Jews. We are not at our own disposal, nor able to direct our own way by our own wisdom, either in matters temporal or spiritual. Nor are we at liberty to choose what line of life we please, or to ensure to ourselves the success and prosperity we may desire. We are under God’s government, and at his disposal, and have continual need of his direction, and of the influence of his grace, without which we shall certainly err from the right way, and shall neither choose nor perform what is truly and lastingly good, and for our happiness. Jeremiah 10:24 O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing. Jeremiah 10:24 . O Lord, correct me — I do not entirely deprecate all chastisement; I know we deserve correction, and am willing to accept it; persuaded that it is necessary for our purification and amendment; but let it be with judgment — That is, in measure, with moderation, and in wisdom; not more than is necessary; not in thine anger — How severe soever the correction be, let it come from thy love, and be designed for our good, and made to work for good; not to bring us to nothing, but to bring us to thyself. Let it not be according to the desert of our sins, but according to the designs of thy grace. Blaney justly observes here, that the word ?????? , translated judgment, “properly signifies, that calm and dispassionate judgment, which stands opposed to the hasty sallies of anger and furious revenge. And, though the latter cannot actually exist in God, it is sometimes, however, nominally attributed to him, whenever the effects of his displeasure are so violent as to stop nothing short of utter ruin; although such a proceeding may be justifiable upon the most solid principles of reason and equity. As, therefore, to punish with anger, implies an unrelenting rigour and severity; so, to correct with judgment, admits the use of such moderation as is consistent with the sinner’s personal safety, while it promotes his reformation.” Jeremiah 10:25 Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name: for they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate. Jeremiah 10:25 . Pour out thine indignation upon the heathen, &c. — Let thy justice be made known, by bringing an exemplary punishment upon the Chaldeans and their allies, (see Jeremiah 1:15 ,) who do not acknowledge thy providence, but ascribe all their successes to their idols: for they have eaten up Jacob, &c. — See note on Jeremiah 6:3 . This prayer, it must be observed, did not proceed from a spirit of malice or revenge in the prophet, nor was it intended to prescribe to God on whom he should execute his judgments, or in what order; but, 1st, It is an appeal to his justice; as if he had said, Lord, we are a provoking people, but are there not other nations that are more so? And shall we only be punished? 2d, It is a prediction of God’s judgments upon all the impenitent enemies of his church and kingdom. If judgment begin thus at the house of God: what shall be the end of those that obey not his gospel? 1 Peter 4:17 . Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositors

Expositor's Bible Commentary Jeremiah 10:1 Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: CHAPTER VI THE IDOLS OF THE HEATHEN AND THE GOD OF ISRAEL Jeremiah 10:1-16 THIS fine piece is altogether isolated from the surrounding context, which it interrupts in a very surprising manner. Neither the style nor the subject, neither the idioms nor the thoughts expressed in them, agree with what we easily recognise as Jeremiah’s work. A stronger contrast can hardly be imagined than that which exists between the leading motive of this oracle as it stands, and that of the long discourse in which it is embedded with as little regard for continuity as an aerolite exhibits when it buries itself in a plain. In what precedes, the prophet’s fellow countrymen have been accused of flagrant and defiant idolatry; { Jeremiah 7:17 sqq., Jeremiah 7:30 sqq.} the opening words of this piece imply a totally different situation. "To the way of the nations become not accustomed, and of the signs of heaven be not afraid; for the nations are afraid of them." Jeremiah would not be likely to warn inveterate apostates not to "accustom themselves" to idolatry. The words presuppose, not a nation whose idolatry was notorious, and had just been the subject of unsparing rebuke and threats of imminent destruction; they presuppose a nation free from idolatry, but exposed to temptation from surrounding heathenism. The entire piece contains no syllable of reference to past or present unfaithfulness on the part of Israel. Here at the outset, and throughout, Israel is implicitly contrasted with "the nations" as the servant of Iahvah with the foolish worshippers of lifeless gods. There is a tone of contempt in the use of the term " goyim "-"To the way of the ‘ goyim ’ accustom not yourselves for the ‘ goyim ’ are afraid of them" (of the signs of heaven); or as the Septuagint puts it yet more strongly, "for they" (the besotted " goyim ") "are afraid" ( i.e., worship) "before them"; as though that alone - the sense of Israel’s superiority-should be sufficient to deter Israelites from any bowings in the house of Rimmon. Neither this contemptuous use of the term " goyim ," "Gentiles," nor the scathing ridicule of the false gods and their devotees, is in the manner of Jeremiah. Both are characteristic of a later period. The biting scorn of image worship, the intensely vivid perception of the utter incommensurableness of Iahvah, the Creator of all things, with the handiwork of the carpenter and the silversmith, are well known and distinctive features of the great prophets of the Exile (see especially Isaiah 40:1-31 ; Isaiah 41:1-29 ; Isaiah 42:1-25 ; Isaiah 43:1-28 ; Isaiah 44:1-28 ; Isaiah 45:1-25 ; Isaiah 46:1-13 ). There are plenty of allusions to idolatry in Jeremiah; but they are expressed in a tone of fervid indignation, not of ridicule. It was the initial offence, which issued in a hopeless degradation of public and private morality, and would have for its certain consequence the rejection and ruin of the nation. { Jeremiah 2:5-13 ; Jeremiah 2:20-28 ; Jeremiah 3:1-9 ; Jeremiah 3:23 sqq.} All the disasters, past and present, which had befallen the country, were due to it ( Jeremiah 7:9 ; Jeremiah 7:17 sqq., Jeremiah 7:30 sqq., Jeremiah 8:2 , etc.) . The people are urged to repent and return to Iahvah with their whole heart, { Jeremiah 3:12 sqq., Jeremiah 4:3 sqq., Jeremiah 5:21 sqq., Jeremiah 6:8 } as the only means of escape from deadly peril. The Baals are things that cannot help or save; { Jeremiah 2:8 ; Jeremiah 2:1 } but the prophet does not say, as here, { Jeremiah 10:5 } "Fear them not: they cannot harm you!" The piece before us breathes not one word about Israel’s apostasy, the urgent need of repentance, the impending ruin. Taken as a whole, it neither harmonises with Jeremiah’s usual method of argument, nor does it suit the juncture of affairs implied by the language which precedes and follows. { Jeremiah 7:1-9 ; Jeremiah 7:26 ; Jeremiah 10:17-25 } For let us suppose that this oracle occupies its proper place here, and was actually written by Jeremiah at the crisis which called forth the preceding and following utterances. Then the warning cry, "Be not afraid of the signs of heaven!" can only mean "Be not afraid of the Powers under whose auspices the Chaldeans are invading your country; Iahvah, the true and living God, wilt protect you!" But consolation of this kind would be diametrically opposed to the doctrine which Jeremiah shares with all his predecessors; the doctrine that Iahvah Himself is the prime cause of the coming trouble, and that the heathen invaders are His instruments of wrath ( Jeremiah 5:9 sq., Jeremiah 6:6 ); it would imply assent to that fallacious confidence in Iahvah, which the prophet has already done his utmost to dissipate. { Jeremiah 6:14 ; Jeremiah 7:4 sq.} The details of the idolatry satirised in the piece before us point to Chaldea rather than to Canaan. We have here a zealous worship of wooden images overlaid and otherwise adorned with silver and gold, and robed in rich garments of violet and purple. {cf. Joshua 7:21 } This does not agree with what we know of Judean practice in Jeremiah’s time, when, besides the worship of the Queen of Heaven, the people adored "stocks and stones"; probably the wooden symbols of the goddess Asherah and rude sun pillars, but hardly works of the costly kind described in the text, which indicate a wealthy people whose religion reflected an advanced condition of the arts and commerce. The designation of the objects of heathen worship as "the signs of heaven," and the gibe at the custom of carrying the idol statues in procession, { Isaiah 46:1 ; Isaiah 46:7 } also point us to Babylon, "the land of graven images," { Jeremiah 50:38 } and the home of star worship and astrological superstition. { Isaiah 47:13 } From all these considerations it would appear that not Israel in Canaan but Israel in Chaldea is addressed in this piece by some unknown prophet, whose leaflet has been inserted among the works of Jeremiah. In that case, the much disputed eleventh verse, written in Aramaic, and as such unique in the volume of the prophets proper, may really have belonged to the original piece. Aramaic was the common language of intercourse between East and West both before and during the captivity; {cf. 2 Kings 18:26 } and the suggestion that the tempted exiles should answer in this dialect the heathen who pressed them to join in their worship, seems suitable enough. The verse becomes very suspicious, if we suppose that the whole piece is really part and parcel of Jeremiah’s discourse, and as such addressed to the Judeans in the reign of Jehoiakim. Ewald, who maintains this view upon grounds that cannot be called convincing, thinks the Aramaic verse was originally a marginal annotation on Jeremiah 10:15 , and suggests that it is a quotation from some early book similar to the Book of Daniel. At all events, it is improbable that the verse proceeded from the pen of Jeremiah, who writes Aramaic nowhere else, not even in the letter to the exiles of the first Judean captivity (chapter 29). But might not the piece be an address which Jeremiah sent to the exiles of the Ten Tribes, who were settled in Assyria, and with whom it is otherwise probable that he cultivated some intercourse? The expression "House of Israel" ( Jeremiah 10:1 ) has been supposed to indicate this. That expression, however, occurs in the immediately preceding context, { Jeremiah 9:26 } as does also that of "the nations"; facts which may partially explain why the passage we are discussing occupies its present position. The unknown author of the Apocryphal Letter of Jeremiah and the Chaldee Targumist appear to have held the opinion that Jeremiah wrote the piece for the benefit of the exiles carried away with Jehoiachin in the first Judean captivity. The Targum introduces the eleventh verse thus: "This is a copy of the letter which Jeremiah the prophet sent to the remnant of the elders of the captivity which was in Babylon. And if the peoples among whom ye are shall say unto you, Fear the Errors, O house of Israel! thus shall ye answer and thus shall ye say unto them: The Errors whom ye fear are (but) errors, in which there is no profit: they from the heavens are not able to bring down rain, and from the earth they cannot make fruits to spring: they and those who fear them will perish from the earth, and will be brought to an end from under these heavens. And thus shall ye say unto them: We fear Him that maketh the earth by His power," etc. ( Jeremiah 10:12 ). The phrase "the remnant of the elders of the captivity which was" (or "who were") "in Babylon" is derived from Jeremiah 29:1 . But how utterly different are the tone and substance of that message from those of the one before us! Far from warning his captive countrymen against the state worship of Babylon, far from satirising its absurdity, Jeremiah bids the exiles be contented with their new home, and to pray for the peace of the city, The false prophets who appear at Babylon prophesy in Iahvah’s name ( Jeremiah 9:15 , Jeremiah 9:21 ), and in denouncing them Jeremiah says not a word about idolatry. It is evident from the whole context that he did not fear it in the case of the exiles of Jehoiachin’s captivity. (See also the simile of the Good and Bad Figs, chapter 24, which further illustrates the prophet’s estimation of the earlier body of exiles.) The Greek Epistle of Jeremiah, which in MSS is sometimes appended to Baruch, and which Fritzsche refers to the Maccabean times, appear to be partially based upon the passage we are considering. Its heading is: "Copy of a letter which Jeremiah sent unto those who were about to be carried away captives to Babylon, by the king of the Babylonians; to announce to them as was enjoined him by God." It then begins thus: "On account of your sins which ye have sinned before God ye will be carried away to Babylon as captives by Nabuchodonosor king of the Babylonians. Having come, then, into Babylon, ye will be there many years, and a long time, until seven generations; but after this I will bring you forth from thence in peace. But now ye will see in Babylon gods, silver and golden and wooden, borne upon shoulders, showing fear" (an object of fear) "to the nations. Beware then, lest ye also become like unto the nations, and fear take you at them, when ye see a multitude before and behind them worshipping them. But say ye in the mind: Thee it behoveth us to worship, O Lord! For Mine angel is with you, and He is requiring your lives." The whole epistle is well worth reading as a kind of paraphrase of our passage. "For their tongue is carven" (or polished) "by a carpenter, and themselves are overlaid with gold and silver, but lies they are and they cannot speak." "They being cast about with purple apparel have their face wiped on account of the dust from the house, which is plentiful upon them" (13). "But he holds a dagger with right hand and an axe, but himself from war and robbers he will not" (cannot) "deliver." {15, cf. Jeremiah 10:15 } "He is like one of the housebeams" (20, cf. Jeremiah 10:8 , and perhaps Jeremiah 10:5 ). "Upon their body and upon their head alight bats, swallows, and the birds, likewise also the cats; whence ye will know that they are not gods; therefore fear them not". {cf. Jeremiah 10:5 } "At all cost are they purchased, in which there is no spirit." {25; cf. Jeremiah 10:9-14 } "Footless, upon shoulders they are carried, displaying their own dishonour to men" (26). "Neither if they suffer evil from any one, nor if good, will they be able to recompense" (34; cf. Jeremiah 10:5 ). "But they that serve them will be ashamed" (39; cf. Jeremiah 10:14 ). "By carpenters and goldsmiths are they prepared: they become nothing but what the craftsmen wish them to become. And the very men that prepare them cannot last long; how then are the things prepared by them likely to do so? for they left lies and a reproach to them that come after. For whenever war and evils come upon them, the priests’ consult together where to hide them. How then is it possible not to perceive that they are not gods, who neither save themselves from war nor from evils? For being of wood and overlaid with gold and silver they will be known hereafter, that they are lies. To all the nations and to the kings it will be manifest that they are not gods but works of men’s hands, and no work of God is in them." {45-51; cf. Jeremiah 10:14-15 } "A wooden pillar in a palace is more useful than the false gods" (59). "Signs among nations they will not show in heaven, nor yet will they shine like the sun, nor give light as the moon" (67). "For as a scarecrow in a cucumber bed guarding nothing, so their gods are wooden and overlaid with gold and silver." {70 cf. Jeremiah 10:5 } The mention of the sun, moon, and stars, the lightning, the wind, the clouds, and fire "sent forth from above," as totally unlike the idols in "forms and powers," seems to show that the author had Jeremiah 10:12-13 before him. When we turn to the Septuagint, we are immediately struck by its remarkable omissions. The four verses Jeremiah 10:6-8 and Jeremiah 10:10 do not appear at all in this oldest of the versions: while the ninth is inserted between the first clause and the remainder of the fifth verse. Now, on the one hand, it is just the verses which the LXX translates, which both in style and matter contrast so strongly with Jeremiah’s authentic work, and are plainly incongruous with the context and occasion; while, on the other hand, the omitted verses contain nothing which points positively to another author than Jeremiah, and, taken by themselves, harmonise very well with what may be supposed to have been the prophet’s feeling at the actual juncture of affairs. There is none at all like Thee, O Iahvah! Great art Thou, and great is Thy Name in might! Who should not fear Thee, O King of the nations? for ‘tis Thy due, For among all the wise of the nations And in all their kingdom there is none at all like Thee. And in one thing they are brute-like and dull; In the doctrine of Vanities. which are wood! But Iahvah Elohim is truth; He is a living God, and an eternal King: At His wrath the earth quaketh And nations abide not His indignation. As Hitzig has observed, it is natural that now, as the terrible decision approaches, the prophet should seek and find comfort in the thought of the all-overshadowing greatness of the God of Israel. If, however, we suppose these verses to be Jeremiah’s, we can hardly extend the same assumption to verses Jeremiah 10:12-16 , in spite of one or two expressions of his which occur in them; and, upon the whole, the linguistic argument seems to weigh decisively against Jeremiah’s authorship of this piece (see Naegelsbach). It may be true enough that "the basis and possibility of the true prosperity and the hope of the genuine community are unfolded in these strophes" (Ewald); but that does not prove that they belong to Jeremiah. Nor can I see much force in the remark that "didactic language is of another kind than that of pure prophecy." But when the same critic affirms that "the description of the folly of idolatry is also quite new, and clearly serves as a model for the much more elaborate ones, Isaiah 40:19-24 (20), Isaiah 41:7 , Isaiah 44:8-20 , Isaiah 46:5-7 "; he is really giving up the point in dispute. Jeremiah 10:12-16 are repeated in the prophecy against Babylon; { Isaiah 51:15-19 } but this hardly proves that "the later prophet, Isaiah 50:1-11 and Isaiah 51:1-23 , found all these words in our piece"; it is only evidence, so far as it goes, for those verses themselves. The internal connection which Ewald assumes, is not self-evident. There is no proof that "the thought that the gods of the heathen might again rule" occurred for one moment to Jeremiah on this occasion; nor the thought that "the maintenance of the ancient true religion in conflict with the heathen must produce the regeneration of Israel." There is no reference throughout the disputed passage to the spiritual condition of the people, which is, in fact, presupposed to be good; and the return in verses Jeremiah 10:17-25 "to the main subject of the discourse" is inexplicable on Ewald’s theory that the whole chapter, omitting Jeremiah 10:11 , is one homogeneous structure. "Hear ye the word that Iahvah spake upon you, O house of Israel! Thus said Iahvah." The terms imply a particular crisis in the history of Israel, when a Divine pronouncement was necessary to the guidance of the people. Iahvah speaks indeed in all existence and in all events, but His voice becomes audible, is recognised as His, only when human need asserts itself in some particular juncture of affairs. Then, in view of the actual emergency, the mind of Iahweh declares itself by the mouth of His proper spokesmen; and the prophetic "Thus said Iahvah" contrasts the higher point of view with the lower, the heavenly and spiritual with the earthly and the carnal; it sets forth the aspect of things as they appear to God, in the sharpest antithesis to the aspect of things as they appear to the natural unilluminated man. "Thus said Iahvah": This is the thought of the Eternal, this is His judgment upon present conditions and passing events, whatever your thought and your judgment may happen or incline to be! Such, I think, is the essential import of this vox solennis , this customary formula of the dialect of prophecy. On the present occasion, the crisis, in view of which a prophet declares the mind of Iahvah, is not a political emergency but a religious temptation. The day for the former has long since passed away, and the depressed and scattered communities of exiled Israelites are exposed among other trials to the constant temptation to sacrifice to present expediency the only treasure which they have salted from the wreck of their country, the faith of their fathers, the religion of the prophets. The uncompromising tone of this isolated oracle, the abruptness with which the writer at once enters in medias res , the solemn emphasis of his opening imperatives, proves that this danger pressed at the time with peculiar intensity. "Thus said Iahvah: Unto the way of the nations use not yourselves, And of the signs of heaven stand not in awe, for that the nations stand in awe of them!". {cf. Leviticus 18:3 Ezekiel 20:18 } The "way" of the nations is their religion, the mode and manner of their worship; { Jeremiah 5:4-5 } and the exiles are warned not to suffer themselves to be led astray by example, as they had been in the land of Canaan; they are not to adore the signs of heaven, simply because they see their conquerors adoring them. The "signs of heaven" would seem to be the sun, moon, and stars, which were the objects of Babylonian worship; although the passage is unhappily not free from ambiguity. Some expositors have preferred to think of celestial phenomena such as eclipses and particular conjunctions of the heavenly bodies, which in those days were looked upon as portents, foreshadowing the course of national and individual fortunes. That there is really a reference to the astrological observation of the stars, is a view which finds considerable support in the words addressed to Babylon on the eve of her fall, by a prophet, who, if not identical was at least contemporary with him whose message we are discussing. In the forty-seventh chapter of the Book of Isaiah, it is said to Babylon: "Let now them that parcel out the heavens, that gaze at the stars, arise and save thee, prognosticating month by month the things that will come upon thee". { Isaiah 47:13 } The "signs of heaven" are, in this case, the supposed indications of coming events furnished by the varying appearances of the heavenly bodies; and one might even suppose that the immediate occasion of our prophecy was some eclipse of the sun or moon, or some remarkable conjunction of the planets which at the time was exciting general anxiety among the motley populations of Babylonia. The prophecy then becomes a remarkable instance of the manner in which an elevated spiritual faith, free from all the contaminating and blinding influences of selfish motives and desires, may rise superior to universal superstition, and boldly contradict the suggestions of what is accounted the highest wisdom of the time, anticipating the results though not the methods nor the evidence of science, at an epoch when science is as yet in the mythological stage. And the prophet might well exclaim in a tone of triumph, "Among all the wise of the nations none at all is like unto Thee, O Lord, as a source of true wisdom and understanding for the guidance of life" ( Jeremiah 10:7 ). The inclusion of eclipses and comets among the signs of heaven here spoken of has been thought to be barred by the considerations that these are sometimes alleged by the prophets themselves as signs of coming judgment exhibited by the God of Israel: that, as a matter of fact, they were as mysterious and awful to the Jews as to their heathen neighbours; and that what is here contemplated is not the terror inspired by rare occasional phenomena of this kind, but a habitual superstition in relation to some ever-present causes. It is certain that in another prophecy against Babylon, preserved in the Book of Isaiah, it is declared that, as a token of the impending destruction, "the stars of heaven and the Orions thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause his light to shine"; { Isaiah 13:10 } and the similar language of the prophet Joel is well known. { Joel 2:2 ; Joel 2:10 ; Joel 2:30-31 ; Joel 3:15 } But these objections are not conclusive, for what our author is denouncing is the heathen association of "the signs of the heavens," whatever may be intended by that expression, with a false system of religious belief. It is a special kind of idolatry that he contemplates, as is clear from the immediate context. Not only does the parallel clause "Unto the way of the nations use not yourselves" imply a gradual conformity to a heathen religion; not only is it the fact that the Hebrew phrase rendered in our versions "Be not dismayed!" may imply religious awe or worship, { Malachi 2:5 } as indeed terms denoting fear or dread are used by the Semitic languages in general; but the prophet at once proceeds to an exposure of the absurdity of image worship: "For the ordinances" (established modes of worship; 2 Kings 17:8 ; here, established objects of worship) "of the peoples are a mere breath" ( i.e., naught)! for it (the idol) "is a tree, which out of the forest one felled" (so the accents); "the handiwork of the carpenter with the bill. With silver and with gold one adorneth it" (or, "maketh it bright"); "with nails and with hammers they make them fast, that one sway not" (or, "that there be no shaking"). "Like the scarecrow of a garden of gourds are they, and they cannot speak; they are carried and carried, for they cannot take a step" (or, "march"): "be not afraid of them, for they cannot hurt, neither is it in their power to benefit!" "Be not afraid of them!" returns to the opening charge: "Of the signs of heaven stand not in awe!". {cf. Genesis 31:42 ; Genesis 31:53 ; Isaiah 8:12-13 } Clearly, then, the signa coeli are the idols against whose worship the prophet warns his people; and they denote "the sun, the moon, the constellations" (of the Zodiac), "and all the host of heaven". { 2 Kings 23:5 } We know that the kings of Judah, from Ahaz onwards, derived this worship from Assyria, and that its original home was Babylon, where in every temple the exiles would see images of the deities presiding over the heavenly bodies, such as Samas (the sun) and his consort Aa (the moon) at Sippara, Merodach (Jupiter) and his son Nebo (Mercurius) at Babylon and Borsippa, Nergal (Mars) at Cutha, daily served with a splendid and attractive ritual, and honoured with festivals and processions on the most costly and magnificent scale. The prophet looks through all this outward display to the void within, he draws no subtle distinction between the symbol and the thing symbolised; he accepts the popular confusion of the god with his image, and identifies all the deities of the heathen with the materials out of which their statues are made by the hands of men. And he is justified in doing this, because there can be but one god in his sense of the word; a multitude of gods is a contradiction in terms. From this point of view, he exposes the absurdity of the splendid idolatry which his captive countrymen see all around them. Behold that thing, he cries, which they call a god, and before which they tremble with religious fear! It is nothing but a tree trunk hewn in the forest, and trimmed into shape by the carpenter, and plated with silver and gold, and fixed on its pedestal with hammer and nails, for fear it should fall! Its terrors are empty terrors, like those of the palm trunk, rough hewn into human shape, and set up among the melons to frighten the birds away. " Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum, Cum faber, incertus scamnum faceretne Priapum, Maluit esse deum. Deus inde ego, furum aviumque Maxima formido ." (Hor., "Sat." 1:8, 1, sqq.) Though the idol has the outward semblance of a man, it lacks his distinguishing faculty of speech; it is as dumb as the scarecrow, and as powerless to move from its place; so it has to be borne about on men’s shoulders (a mocking allusion to the grand processions of the gods, which distinguished the Babylonian festivals). Will you then be afraid of things that can do neither good nor harm? asks the prophet: in terms that recall the challenge of another, or perchance of himself, to the idols of Babylon: "Do good or do evil, that we may look at each other and see it together." { Isaiah 41:23 } In utter contrast with the impotence, the nothingness of all the gods of the nations, whether Israel’s neighbours or his invaders, stands, forever the God of Israel. "There is none at all like Thee, O Iahweh! great art Thou, and great is Thy Name in might!" With different vowel points, we might render, "Whence (cometh) Thy like, O Iahvah?" This has been supported by reference to Jeremiah 30:7 : "Alas! for great is that day. Whence" (is one) "like it?" ( me’ayin ?); but there too, as here, we may equally well translate, "there is none like it." The interrogative, in fact, presupposes a negative answer; and the Hebrew particle usually rendered "there is not, are not" (" ‘ayin, ‘en ") has been explained as originally identical with the interrogative "where?" (" ‘ayin, " implied in " me’ayin ," "from where?" "whence?" cf. Job 14:10 : "where is he?" =" he is not"). The idiom of the text expresses a more emphatic negation than the ordinary form would do; and, though rare, is by no means altogether unparalleled. {see Isaiah 40:17 ; Isaiah 41:24 ; and other references in Gesenius} "Great art Thou and great is Thy Name in might"; that is to say, Thou art great in Thyself, and great in repute or manifestation among men, in respect of "might," virile strength or prowess. { Psalm 21:13 } Unlike the do nothing idols, Iahvah reveals His strength in deeds of strength. {cf. Exodus 15:3 sqq.} "Who should not fear Thee, Thou King of the nations?" (cf. Jeremiah 5:22 ) "for Thee it beseemeth" it is Thy due, and Thine only): "for among all the wise of the nations and in all their realm, there is none at all" (as in Jeremiah 10:6 ) "like Thee." Religious fear is instinctive in man; but, whereas the various nations lavish reverence upon innumerable objects utterly unworthy of the name of deity, rational religion sees clearly that there can be but One God, working His supreme will in heaven and earth; and that this Almighty being is the true "King of the nations," and disposes their destinies as well as that of His people Israel, although they know Him not, but call other imaginary beings their "kings" (a common Semitic designation of a national god: Psalm 20:9 ; Isaiah 6:5 ; Isaiah 8:20 . He, then, is the proper object of the instinct of religious awe; all the peoples of the earth owe Him adoration, even though they be ignorant of their obligation; worship is His unshared prerogative. "Among all the wise of the nations and in all their realm, not one is like Thee!" Who are the wise thus contrasted with the Supreme God? Are the false gods the reputed wise ones, giving pretended counsel to their deluded worshippers through the priestly oracle? The term "kingdom" seems to indicate this view, if we take "their kingdom" to mean the kingdom of the wise ones of the nations, that is, the countries whose "kings" they are, where they are worshipped as such. The heathen in general, and the Babylonians in particular, ascribed wisdom to their gods. But there is no impropriety from an Old Testament point of view in comparing Iahvah’s wisdom with the wisdom of man. The meaning of the prophet may be simply this, that no earthly wisdom, craft, or political sagacity, not even in the most powerful empires such as Babylon, can be a match for Iahvah the All-wise, or avail to thwart His purposes. { Isaiah 31:1-2 } "Wise" and "sagacious" are titles which the kings of Babylon continually assert for themselves in their extant inscriptions; and the wisdom and learning of the Chaldeans were famous in the ancient world. Either view will agree with what follows: "But in one thing they"-the nations, or their wise men-"will turn out brutish and besotted": (in) "the teaching of Vanities which are wood." The verse is difficult; but the expression "the teaching (or doctrine) of Vanities" may perhaps be regarded as equivalent to "the idols taught of"; and then the second half of the verse is constructed like the first member of Jeremiah 10:3 : "The ordinances of the peoples are Vanity," and may be rendered, "the idols taught of are mere wood." {cf. Jeremiah 10:3 b, Jeremiah 2:27 ; Jeremiah 3:9 } It is possible also that the right reading is "foundation" (" musad ") not "doctrine" (" musar "): "the foundation" (basis, substratum, substance) "of idols is wood." The term "Vanities- habalim "-is used for "idols." { Jeremiah 8:19 ; Jeremiah 14:22 ; Psalm 31:7 } And, lastly, I think, the clause might be rendered: "a doctrine of Vanities, of mere wood, it"-their religion-"is!" This supreme folly is the "one thing" that discredits all the boasted wisdom of the Chaldeans; and their folly will hereafter be demonstrated by events ( Jeremiah 10:14 ). The body of the idol is wood, and outwardly it is decorated with silver and gold and costly apparel; but the whole and every part of it is the work of man. "Silver plate" (lit. "beaten out") "from Tarshish"-from far away Tartessus in Spain-"is brought, and gold from Uphaz," { Daniel 10:5 } "the work of the smith, and of the hands of the founder"-who have beaten out the silver and smelted the gold: "blue and purple is their clothing": { Exodus 26:31 ; Exodus 28:8 } "the work of the wise"-of skilled artists { Isaiah 40:20 } -"is every part of them." Possibly the verse might better be translated: "Silver to be beaten out"- argentum malleo diducendum -"which is brought from Tarshish, and gold" which is brought "from Uphaz," are "the work of the smith and of the hands of the smelter; the blue and purple" which are "their clothing," are "the work of the wise all of them." At all events, the point of the verse seems to be that, whether you look at the inside or the outside of the idol, his heart of wood or his casing of gold and silver and his gorgeous robes, the whole and every bit of him as he stands before you is a manufactured article, the work of men’s hands. The supernatural comes in nowhere. In sharpest contrast with this lifeless fetish, "Iahvah is a God that is truth," i.e., a true God, {cf. Proverbs 22:21 } or "Iahvah is God in truth"-is really God-"He is a living God, and an eternal King"; the sovereign whose rule is independent of the vicissitudes of time, and the caprices of temporal creatures: "at His wrath the earth quaketh, and nations cannot abide His indignation": the world of nature and the world of man are alike dependent upon His Will, and He exhibits His power and his righteous anger in the disturbances of the one and the disasters of the other. According to the Hebrew punctuation, we should rather translate: "But Iahvah Elohim " the designation of God in the second account of creation, { Genesis 2:4-25 ; Genesis 3:1-24 } "is truth," i.e., reality; as opposed to the falsity and nothingness of the idols; or "permanence," "lastingness," { Psalm 19:10 } as opposed to their transitoriness ( Jerem

Illustrator

Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you. Jeremiah 10:1-16 Hearing the Word of the Lord W. Stevens. I. WHAT IS THE WORD OF THE LORD? His law and Gospel. II. WHAT IS IMPLIED IN HEARING THE WORD OF GOD? 1. That we attend His ordinances. 2. That we observe what we hear. 3. That we understand what we observe. 4. That we believe what we understand. 5. That we remember what we believe. 6. That we practise what we remember. 7. That we continue in what we practise. III. WHY SHOULD WE HEAR? 1. Because God has commanded it. 2. Because it is for our great interest, it being the means of repentance, faith, light, comfort, and leads to eternal happiness. IV. HOW WORTHY OF REPROOF ARE THEY — 1. Who do not come to hear. 2. Who do not hear when they are come. 3. Who do not mind what they hear if they do come. 4. Who do not understand what they give attention to. 5. Who will not believe what they understand. 6. Who will not practise what they believe. V. EXHORTATION. 1. Hear God's Word with reverence. 2. Caution. 3. Attention. 4. Intention. ( W. Stevens. ) For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest (the work of the hands of the workman ) with the axe . Jeremiah 10:3-5 The gods of the heathen J. Parker, D. D. It is often said of God that He is unknowable. It would seem as if this was advanced as a kind of reason for not concerning ourselves about Him. The form into which this thought would be thrown is something like — If there is a God, He cannot be known by the human mind, and therefore we need not try to know Him. It is remarkable, however, that the Bible distinctly warns us against gods which can be known; and, indeed, the very fact that they can be known is the strong reason given for distrusting and avoiding them. The Bible even makes merry over all the gods that can be known. It takes up one, and says, with a significant tone, This is wood; another, and laughs at it as a clever contrivance in iron; another it takes up, and setting it down smiles at it as a pretty trick in goldsmithery. Concerning the false gods of his time, Isaiah says ( Isaiah 46:7 ). "They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him, and set him in his place, and he standeth." Thus everything can be known about the false gods: we can walk round them; we can tell the very day of their manufacture; we can give their exact weight in pounds and ounces; we can set down their stature in feet and inches; we can change their complexion with a brush: because they are known they are contemptible. In opposition to all this view of heathen deities stands the glorious revelation of the personality and nature of the true God. "God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." A conviction of the vital difference between the God of the Hebrews and the god of the heathen seems to have forced itself into the minds even of those to whom the true revelation had not come: "Their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges." All human history would seem to show that men must have either a knowable or an unknowable God. Every thinking man has what to him is equivalent to a god. His thought stretched to the point of perplexity — because so much appeals to it that is beyond absorption or reconciliation — becomes to man a species of deity, or in other terms an unknown and bewildering quantity, which will not allow him to put a full stop to his thinking, saying, Human life ends here, and beyond it there is no field of legitimate inquiry. On the other hand, a child loved to idolatry becomes very near to occupying the position of a god. Be it what it may, either a high conception or a low, it would seem as if we must find some equivalent to God, either in the fog of chance, the temple of art, or the sanctuary of revelation. Even false gods put their devotees to great expense in their service. Take the man who gives himself up to the pursuit of an idea, chimerical or practical, but large enough to be to him a religion. He lives no idle life; he does not rise with the sluggard, or lull his brain with opiates; he sees a beckoning spirit on the high hills, and hears a voice bidding him make haste whilst the light lasts; he writhes under many an inexplicable inspiration; he dares the flood that affrights the coward; he cannot spare himself: he is not his own. Such men are not to be despised. They give life a higher meaning, and service a bolder range. I only say of them in this connection that their worship is neither easy nor inexpensive. Men have to rise early, to run great risks, to deny themselves many temporary gratifications, to say No where often they would be glad to say Yes; they have to abandon the society of wife and children, and the security and joy of home, that they may go afar to learn new languages, face new conditions, and endeavour to subdue oppositions of the most stubborn kind. The highest application of this doctrine is found in the religion of Jesus Christ. Whoever would gain immortality must hate his present life, — whoever would seize heaven in its highest interpretations and uses must hold in con. tempt, as to mere permanence of satisfaction, this little earth and its vain appeals. The service of the true God includes all the grandest ideas of the human mind. This is the supreme advantage which Christianity has over every phase of human thought. It keeps men back from no service that is good: on the contrary, it compels them to adopt and pursue it. Is it a question of high ideals? Then we may boldly ask what ideal can be higher, and morally completer, than that which is presented by the religion of Jesus Christ? That ideal may be expressed as peace on earth, and goodwill toward men, — an idea involving personal righteousness, international honour, the recognition of the broadest human rights, and the possibility of all nations, peoples, kindreds, and tongues being consolidated into one Christian brotherhood, not as to mere accidents, but as to supremacy of purpose and pureness of motive. The followers of Bible godliness are not mere dreamers. They do more for the world's progress than any other men in society can do. The advantage which the Christian worshipper has over all the heathen round about him is in the fact that he himself was converted from social heathenism and from trust in false gods. "Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led." Although this has literally no application to us, its spiritual reference is abundantly clear: we have followed the customs of the world; we have drunk at its fountains; we have wandered in its gardens; we have bought its delights; we have sacrificed at its altars; and today we stand up to testify that the gods of the heathen can neither hear prayer nor answer it, can neither pity human distress nor relieve it. We know also with equal certainty, on the other hand, that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ covers our whole life, answers all its deepest necessities, is a sovereign balm for every wound, and cordial for our fears. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Who would not fear Thee, O King of nations? Jeremiah 10:7 Jeremiah's study of providence J. Parker, D. D. Even suppose this were a poetical image, it is full of the finest suggestiveness. The image is that of a man who has been going up and down the idol temples to see if he could find a god, and having failed to find what lay upon his heart with all the tenderness of kinship and appealed to his intelligence with all the vigour of omniscience, he lifted up his eyes and said, There must be something better than all this. He must needs in his imagining make a King of nations, rather than be without one. This makes plain a good deal of the theology of the ages. Men did not create it merely for the sake of showing mechanical or literary cleverness, but for the sake of expressing the only possible satisfaction to certain moral and spiritual instincts and deep religious necessities. We, therefore, should respect all honest broad-minded theologians. They were pioneers in the higher civilisation; they began to build and were not able to finish: but every age is not called to build a separate temple; enough if one age builds partly, then ceases, making room for another generation; all the while the living temple, often invisible and mystic, is rising solidly and eternally to the skies. A bold title is this to give to the living God, namely, "King of nations." There should be no other king but God. Israel never wanted a king until Israel forgot to pray. The king was granted, for God does answer some imperfect and almost vicious prayers. He has no other way of teaching us. As education advances kings will go down; the Son of Man will come, the glorious Humanity. Meanwhile, even kings may serve great purposes, but only so far as they are great men. Kings are only good, and all men are only to be tolerated and to be honoured, in proportion as they are higher than their office, better and more than their function — in proportion as they live capably for the good of others. Nothing is to be hurried in any direction. We gain rather by growth than by violence. He puts his watch right instantly who puts it right by the hands; but he is much mistaken if he thinks the whole process is over and done by that manipulation. There is an interior work to be done. So with all civilisation, and all its functions and offices. We do nothing by merely smiting, striking; but we do everything by concession, by conciliation, by generous trust, by large education, by magnanimous hopefulness of one another. The prophet acquires the greater confidence in God in proportion as he sees the utter weakness and worthlessness of all the gods which men have made. Thus by experience men are brought to the true religion. Let men shed their gods, as they shed some infantile disease. Do not hurry them in this matter. Let them really have time to know how little their gods are. The prophet, having seen what the gods could do, turned with a new cry and with a profounder adoration to the King of kings, the King of nations. A beautiful expression is that, — "King of nations," an expression which takes up the whole nation as if it were a unit, as if it were one line, and that blesses the national life. There is an ideality in that conception which is worthy of the finest imagination. Why should there not be a national unit as well as an individual unit? Christianity alone can take the sting out of geography, and make the whole human family one in sympathy and trust and love. If ever Christianity has appeared to do the contrary, it was by travesty and blasphemy, not by fair honest enlightened interpretation of principle and duty. Jeremiah turns once more to the worthless gods, and from verses 11-15 he shows the relation of the false to the true, and the true to the false. "Man is brutish in his knowledge" — that is to say, when left to himself he goes very little beyond the line of instinct, animal impulse, and convenience; very clever in his inventions, but never able to touch the heavens; all he does is based upon the earth, and does not rise to the blue sky, but by some wind or hand invisible his tower is thrown down in the night time. This being the case, is man to turn to him. self? Ashamed of the gods, is man to take up with the idea of self-idolatry or self-instruction? The prophet replies to that inquiry, "O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps" (ver. 23). Now, that is most true; for we have tried to direct our way, and we have failed, we have made more mistakes than we have ever confessed; sometimes with a modesty that is difficult to distinguish from self-conceit, we have owned that we have fallen into occasional error; but who has ever taken out the tablet of his heart, held it up within reading distance, that others might peruse the record of miscarriage, misadventure, and mistake? On the other hand, how many are there who would hesitate to stand forth and say, In proportion to trustfulness, docility, obedience, has real prosperity come? How many are there who would confess that they had been stronger after prayer than they were before it, readier to deal with rough life after they have had long communion with God? Christians should be more definite in their statements upon these matters. They should not hesitate to use such words as "inspired by God," "guided by heaven," directed by the loving Father of creation. Were we more frank, definite, and fearless about these matters, we should make a deeper impression upon the age in which we live. The prophet recognises the need of another ministry which for the present is never joyous, but grievous. "O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in Thine anger, lest Thou bring me to nothing" (ver. 24). He would have judgment with measure; he would have chastisement apportioned to him, not indiscriminately inflicted upon him. Here we have philosophy, forethought, the economy of strength, the wise outlay of ministerial and penal activity. But who prays to be corrected? Who prays to be judged? We should get great advantage if we could begin at that point. Correction that is prayed for becomes a means of grace; it is received in the right spirit because asked for in the right spirit; but to accept it dumbly, sullenly, or in the spirit of fatefulness, is to lose the advantage of chastisement. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) God the only object of fear To fear God is generally used in three senses in Scripture J. Saurin. 1. Fear sometimes signifies terror; a disposition that makes the soul consider itself only as sinful, and God chiefly as a being who hateth and avengeth sin. There are various degrees of this fear, and it deserves either praise, or blame, according to the different degree to which it is carried. A man whose heart is so void of the knowledge of the perfections of God, that he cannot rise above the little idols which worldlings adore; whose notions are so gross that he cannot adhere to the purity of religion for purity's sake; whose taste is so vitiated that he hath no relish for the delightful union of a faithful soul with its God; such a man deserves to be praised, when he endeavoureth to restrain his sensuality by the idea of an avenging God. The fear of God, taken in this first sense, is a laudable disposition. But it ceaseth to be laudable, it becomes detestable, when it goeth so far as to deprive a sinner of a sight of all the gracious remedies which God hath reserved for sinners. It should be left to the devils to believe and tremble ( James 2:19 ). Fear is no less odious, when it giveth us tragical descriptions of the rights of God, and of His designs on His creatures: when it maketh a tyrant of Him. Away with that fear of God which is so injurious to His majesty, and so unworthy of that throne which is founded on equity! 2. To fear God is a phrase still more equivocal, and it is put for that disposition of mind which inclines us to render to Him all the worship that He requires, to submit to all the laws that He imposeth, to conceive all the emotions of admiration, devotedness, and love, which the eminence of His perfections demands. This is the usual meaning of the phrase. By this Jonah described himself, even while he was acting contrary to it, "I am an Hebrew, and I fear the Lord the God of heaven" ( Jonah 1:9 ). In this sense the phrase is to be understood when we are told that "the fear of the Lord prolongeth days, is a fountain of life, and preserveth from the snares of death" ( Proverbs 10:27 ; Proverbs 14:27 ). And it is to be taken in the same sense where "the fear of the Lord" is said to be "the beginning of wisdom" ( Psalm 111:10 ). The fear of the Lord in all these passages includes all the duties of religion. It seems needless to remark what idea we ought to form of this fear, for, it is plain, the mere a soul is penetrated with it, the nearer it approacheth to perfection. 3. But, beside these two notions of fear, there is a third, which is more nearly allied to our text, a notion that is neither so general as the last, nor so particular as the first. Fear, in this third sense, is a disposition which considers Him who is the object of it as alone possessing all that can contribute to our happiness or misery. Distinguish here a particular from a general happiness. It often happens that, all things being considered, a particular happiness, considered in the whole of our felicity is a general misery: and, on the contrary, it often happens that, all things being considered, a particular misery, in the whole of our felicity is a general happiness. It was a particular misfortune in the life of a man to be forced to bear the amputation of a mortified arm: but weighing the whole felicity of the life of the man, this particular misfortune became a good, because had he not consented to the amputation of the mortified limb, the mortification would have been fatal to his life, and would have deprived him of all felicity here. It was a particular calamity, that a believer should be called to suffer martyrdom: but in the whole felicity of that believer, martyrdom was a happiness, yea, an inestimable happiness; by suffering the pain of a few moments he hath escaped those eternal torments which would have attended his apostasy. To consider a being as capable of rendering us happy or miserable, in the general sense that we have given of the words happiness and misery, is to fear that being, in the third sense which we have given to the term fear. This is the sense of the word fear, in the text, and in many other passages of the Holy Scriptures. Thus Isaiah useth it, "Say ye not a confederacy," etc. ( Isaiah 8:12, 13 ). So again, "Who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid," etc. ( Isaiah 51:12 ). And again in these words of our Saviour, "Fear not them which kill the body," etc. ( Matthew 10:28 ). To kill the body is to cause a particular evil; and to fear them which kill the body is to regard the death of the body as a general evil, determining the whole of our felicity. To fear Him which is able to destroy the soul, is to consider the loss of the soul as the general evil, and Him who is able to destroy the soul as alone able to determine the whole of our felicity or misery. In this sense we understand the text, and this sense seems most agreeable to the scope of the place. I. GOD IS A BEING WHOSE WILL IS SELF-EFFICIENT. We call that will self-efficient which infallibly produceth its effect. By this efficiency of will we distinguish God from every other being, either real, or possible. No one but God hath a self-efficient will. There is no one but God of whom the argument from the will to the act is demonstrative. Of none but God can we reason in this manner: He willeth, therefore He doth. Every intelligent being hath some degree of efficiency in his will: my will hath an efficiency on my arm; I will to move my arm, my arm instantly moves. But there is as great a difference between the efficiency of the will of a creature, and the efficiency of the will of the Creator, as there is between a finite and an infinite being. The will of a created intelligence, properly speaking, is not self-efficient, for it hath only a borrowed efficiency. When He, from whom it is derived, restrains it, this created intelligence will have only a vain, weak, inefficient will. I have today a will efficient to move my arm: but if that Being from whom I derive this will, should contract or relax the fibres of this arm, my will to move it would become vain, weak, and inefficient. Further, the efficiency of a creature's will is finite. My will is efficient in regard to the portion of matter to which I am united: but how contracted is my empire! how limited is my sovereignty! It extends no farther than the mass of my body extends; and the mass of my body is only a few inches broad, and a few cubits high. II. GOD IS THE ONLY BEING WHO HATH A SUPREME DOMINION OVER THE OPERATIONS OF A SPIRITUAL AND IMMORTAL SOUL. From this principle we conclude that God alone hath the happiness and misery of man in His power. God alone merits the supreme homage of fear. God alone not only in opposition to all the imaginary gods of paganism, but also in opposition to every being that really exists, is worthy of this part of the adoration of a spiritual and immortal creature. "Who would not fear Thee, O King of nations?" God alone can act immediately on a spiritual creature. He needs neither the fragrance of flowers, nor the savour of foods, nor any of the mediums of matter, to communicate agreeable sensations to the soul. He needs neither the action of fire, the rigour of racks, nor the galling of chains, to produce sensations of pain. He acts immediately on the soul. It is He, human soul! It is He who, by leaving thee to revolve in the dark void of thine unenlightened mind, can deliver thee up to all the torments that usually follow ignorance, uncertainty, and doubt. But the same God can expand thine intelligence just when He pleaseth, and enable it to lay down principles, to infer consequences, to establish conclusions. It is He who can impart new ideas to thee, teach thee to combine those which thou hast already acquired, enable thee to multiply numbers, show thee how to conceive the infinitely various arrangements of matter, acquaint thee with the essence of thy thought, its different modifications and its endless operations. It is He who can grant thee new revelations, develop those which He hath already given thee, but which have hitherto lain in obscurity; He can inform thee of His purposes, His counsels and decrees, and lay before thee, if I may venture to say so, the whole history of time and eternity. For nothing either hath subsisted in time, or will subsist in eternity, but what was preconceived in the counsels of His infinite intelligence. III. If the idea of a Being, whose will is self-efficient and who can act immediately on a spiritual soul, were not sufficient to incline you to render the homage of fear to God, I would represent Him as MAKING ALL CREATURES FULFIL HIS WILL. If tyrants, executioners, prisons, dungeons, racks, tortures, pincers, caldrons of boiling oil, gibbets, stakes, were necessary; if all nature, and all the elements were wanted to inspire that soul with fear, which is so far elevated above the elements, and all the powers of nature: I would prove to you that tyrants and executioners, prisons and dungeons, racks and tortures, and pincers, caldrons of boiling oil, gibbets and stakes, all nature and all the elements fulfil the designs of the King of nations; and that, when they seem the least under His direction, they are invariably accomplishing His will. These are not imaginary ideas of mine; but they are taken from the same Scriptures that establish the first ideas, which we have been explaining. What do our prophets and apostles say of tyrants, executioners, and persecutors? In what colours do they paint them? Behold, how God contemns the proudest potentates; see how He mortifies and abases them ( Isaiah 10:5, 7 ; Isaiah 14:5, 11-15 ; Isaiah 37:29 ). Oh, how capable were our sacred authors of considering the grandees of the earth in their true point of light! Oh, how well they knew how to teach us what a king or a tyrant is in the presence of Him by whose command kings decree justice ( Proverbs 8:15 ), and by whose permission, and even direction, tyrants decree injustice! ( J. Saurin. ) A royal confession of faith At Aix-la-Chapelle, on June 20, 1902, the Emperor of Germany spoke with great earnestness in favour of faith in God. "The foundations of the empire," said he, "are laid on the fear of God, I look to all to strengthen the hold of religion on the people. Whosoever does not base his life on faith is lost. My empire and army, and I myself, have chosen the protection of Him who said, 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Word shall not pass away.'" He is the living God, and an everlasting King. Jeremiah 10:10 The personality of the Deity H. Ware, D. D. In treating the doctrine respecting God, the mind is deeply impressed with the sense of its importance in its bearing on human duty and happiness. It is the doctrine of a Creator, the Governor and Father of man. The discussion relates not merely to the laws of the universe, and the principles by which its affairs are directed, but to the character and dispositions of the Being who presides over those laws, and by whose will those affairs are determined. The importance of this consideration to a true and happy virtue cannot be overestimated. The difference between conformity to a statute and obedience to a father is a difference not to be measured in words, but to be realised in the experience of the soul. It is slightly represented in the difference between the condition of a little child that lives in the presence of a judicious and devoted mother, an object of perpetual affection, and of another that is placed under the charge of a public institution, which knows nothing but a set of rules. The idea of personality must be added to that of natural and moral perfection, in order to the full definition of the Deity. Without this, He is but a set of principles or a code of laws. I begin with stating what is meant by the personality of the Deity. A person is an intelligent, conscious agent; one who thinks, perceives, understands, wills, and acts. What we assert is, that God is such. It is not implied that any distinct form or shape is necessary to personality. In the case of man, the bodily form is not the person. That form remains after death; but we no longer call it a person, because consciousness and the power of will and of action are gone. The evidence of this fact is found in the works of design with which the universe is filled. They imply forethought, plan, wisdom, a designing mind; in other words, an Intelligent Being, who devised and executed them. If we suppose that there is no conscious intelligent person, we may say that there is no plan, no purpose, no design; there is nothing but a set of abstract and unconscious principles. And strange as it may seem to Christian ears, which have been accustomed to far other expressions of the Divinity, there have been those who maintain this idea; who hold, that the principles which govern the universe constitute the Deity; that power, wisdom, veracity, justice, benevolence, are God; that gravitation, light, electricity, are God. 1. One of the most observable and least questionable principles, drawn from our observation of man and nature, is, that the person, the conscious being, is the chief thing, for the sake of which all else is, and subservient to which all principles operate. The person, the conscious, intelligent, active, enjoying, suffering being, is foremost in importance and honour; principles and laws operate for its support, guidance, and well-being, and therefore are secondary. Some of these principles and laws have their origin in the relations which exist amongst intelligent, moral agents; most of them come into action in consequence of the previous existence of those relations. If there were no such agents, there either would be no such principles, or they would have no operation. Thus, for example, veracity, justice, love, are sentiments or obligations which spring up from the relations subsisting between different beings, and can exist only where there are persons. We may say, indeed, that they exist abstractly, in the nature of things; but, if there be no beings to recognise them, no agents to conform to or violate them, they would be as if they were not. They are qualities of being, and, like all qualities, have no actual existence independent of the substances in which they inhere. They have relation to acts, — voluntary acts of truth, justice, goodness; and acts belong to persons. If there existed no persons in the universe, but only things, there could be neither the act nor the sentiment of justice, goodness, truth; these are qualities of persons, not of things; of actions, not of substances. Suppose the Deity to exist alone in the universe which He has made. Then, from the conscious enjoyment of His own perfections, and the exercise of His power in the physical creation, He must dwell in bliss; but, as He has no relations to other conscious existences, He cannot exercise justice, or truth, or love; they lie in the infinite bosom as if they were not; they have only a contingent existence. Or make another supposition. Upon the newly created earth one man is placed alone. He knows no other conscious existence but himself. What are truth, justice, charity to him? They are nothing to him. He cannot have ideas of them. They are sentiments that belong to certain relations between beings, which relations he does not stand in, and knows nothing of. To him, therefore, they do not exist. Now, send him companions, and the relations begin, which give those sentiments birth and make their expression possible. He is in society; and those principles, which make the strength and order of society, immediately come into action. The necessities of conscious being call them forth. Thus what is chiefest in the universe is conscious, active mind; abstract principles are but the laws of its various relations. This may be illustrated, if necessary, from the analogies of the physical universe. Which is chief, the law of gravitation, or the universe which it sustains? The one is but means, the other is end; and the end is always greater than the means. If you say, No; gravitation is the superior, because it is the universal power of God; then I reply, "You thereby assent to the superiority of the person over the principle; for, as His power, it is His servant; He controls and directs it." But if you take the other ground, and speak of gravitation as a power independent of any being, then you cannot deny that it exists and is active for the sage of the systems and their inhabitants; operating for their sake, it is their servant and inferior; without them, it would be inert and non-existent. Thus the analogy of the physical universe corroborates the position. If there were no material masses, there could be no gravitation; if there were no persons there could be no truth, or justice, or love. There is another way of considering this point. What is it that, in the whole history and progress of man, has proved most interesting to man? What has been the favourite study, the chief subject of contemplation and care? Has it not been men, persons? Have not their character, fortunes, words, deeds, been the chief themes of thought, of conversation, of letters, of arts? Is it not the interest which the soul takes in persons that is the foundation of society, of its activity, its inventions, its advancement in civilisation, its institutions, its laws? Thus the doctrine which denies personality to God is in opposition to the general economy of nature, which sets peculiar honour on persons. In all the other relations of its being, the soul is concerned with nothing so much. Why should it be less so in its highest relation? 2. It also amounts to a virtual denial of God. Indeed, this is the only sense in which it seems possible to make that denial. No one thinks of denying the existence of principles and laws. Gravitation, order, cause and effect, truth, benevolence, — no one denies that these exist; and, if these constitute the Deity, He has not been, and cannot be, denied. The only denial possible is by this exclusion of a personal existence. There can be no atheism but this; and this is atheism. If the material universe rests on the laws of attraction, affinity, heat, motion, still all of them together are no Deity; if the moral universe is founded on the principles of righteousness, truth, love, neither are these the Deity. There must be some Being to put in action these principles, to exercise these attributes. There is a personal God, or there is none. 3. Further, to exclude personality from the idea of God, is, in effect, to destroy the object of worship, and thus to annihilate that essential duty of religion. The sentiment of reverence may, undoubtedly, be felt for a principle, for a code of laws, for an institution of government. But worship, which is the expression of that sentiment, is applicable only to a conscious being, as all the language and customs of men signify. It is praise, thanks, honour, and petition, addressed to one who can hear and reply. If there be no such one, — if the

Matthew Henry

10:1-16 The prophet shows the glory of Israel's God, and exposes the folly of idolaters. Charms and other attempts to obtain supernatural help, or to pry into futurity, are copied from the wicked customs of the heathen. Let us stand in awe, and not dare provoke God, by giving that glory to another which is due to him alone. He is ready to forgive, and save all who repent and believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ. Faith learns these blessed truths from the word of God; but all knowledge not from that source, leads to doctrines of vanity. 10:17-25 The Jews who continued in their own land, felt secure. But, sooner or later, sinners will find all things as the word of God has declared, and that its threatenings are not empty terrors. Submission will support the believer under every grief allotted to him; but what can render the load of Divine vengeance easy to be borne by those who fall under it in sullen despair? Those cannot expect to prosper, who do not, by faith and prayer, take God with them in all their ways. The report of the enemy's approach was very dreadful. Yet the designs which men lay deep, and think well formed, are dashed to pieces in a moment. Events are often overruled, so as to be quite contrary to what we intended and expected. If the Lord has directed our steps into the ways of peace and righteousness, let us entreat him to enable us to walk therein. Say not, Lord, do not correct me; but, Lord, do not correct me in anger. We may bear the smart of God's rod, but we cannot bear the weight of his wrath. Those who restrain prayer, prove that they know not God; for those who know him will seek him, and seek his favour. If even severe corrections lead sinners to be convinced of wholesome truths, they will have abundant cause for gratitude. And they will then humble themselves before the Lord.