Bible Commentary

Expositor's Bible Commentary Jeremiah 15:1 Then said the LORD unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth. CHAPTER IX THE DROUGHT AND ITS MORAL IMPLICATIONS Jeremiah 14:1-22 ; Jeremiah 15:1-21 (17?) VARIOUS opinions have been expressed about the division of these chapters. They have been cut up into short sections, supposed to be more or less independent of each other; and they have been regarded as constituting a well-organised whole, at least so far as the eighteenth verse of chapter 17. The truth may lie between these extremes. Chapters 14, 15 certainly hang together; for in them the prophet represents himself as twice interceding with Iahvah on behalf of the people, and twice receiving a refusal of his petition, { Jeremiah 14:1-22 ; Jeremiah 15:1-4 } the latter reply being sterner and more decisive than the first. The occasion was a long period of drought, involving much privation for man and beast. The connection between the parts of this first portion of the discourse is clear enough. The prophet prays for his people, and God answers that He has rejected them, and that intercession is futile. Thereupon, Jeremiah throws the blame of the national sins upon the false prophets; and the answer is that both the people and their false guides will perish. The prophet then soliloquises upon his own hard fate as a herald of evil tidings, and receives directions for his own personal guidance in this crisis of affairs. { Jeremiah 15:10-21 ; Jeremiah 16:1-9 } There is a pause, but no real break, at the end of chapter 15. The next chapter resumes the subject of directions personally affecting the prophet himself; and the discourse is then continuous so far as Jeremiah 17:18 , although, naturally enough, it is broken here and there by pauses of considerable duration, marking transitions of thought, and progress in the argument. The heading of the entire piece is marked in the original by a peculiar inversion of terms, which meets us again, Jeremiah 46:1 ; Jeremiah 47:1 ; Jeremiah 49:34 , but which, in spite of this recurrence, wears a rather suspicious look. We might render it thus: "What fell as a word of Iahvah to Jeremiah, on account of the droughts" (the plural is intensive, or it signifies the long continuance of the trouble-as if one rainless period followed upon another). Whether or not the singular order of the words be authentic, the recurrence at Jeremiah 17:8 of the remarkable term for "drought" (Hebrews baccoreth of which baccaroth here is plur.) favours the view that that chapter is an integral portion of the present discourse. The exordium { Jeremiah 14:1-9 } is a poetical sketch of the miseries of man and beast, closing with a beautiful prayer. It has been said that this is not "a word of Iahvah to Jeremiah," but rather the reverse. If we stick to the letter, this no doubt is the case; but, as we have seen in former discourses, the phrase "Iahvah’s word" meant in prophetic use very much more than a direct message from God, or a prediction uttered at the Divine instigation. Here, as elsewhere, the prophet evidently regards the course of his own religious reflection as guided by Him who "fashioneth the hearts of men," and "knoweth their thoughts long before"; and if the question had suggested itself, he would certainly have referred his own poetic powers-the tenderness of his pity, the vividness of his apprehension, the force of his passion, -to the inspiration of the Lord who had called and consecrated him from the birth, to speak in His Name. There lies at the heart of many of us a feeling, which has lurked there, more or less without our cognisance, ever since the childish days when the Old Testament was read at the mother’s knee, and explained and understood in a manner proportioned to the faculties of childhood. When we hear the phrase "The Lord spake," we instinctively think, if we think at all, of an actual voice knocking sensibly at the door of the outward ear. It was not so; nor did the sacred writer mean it so. A knowledge of Hebrew idiom-the modes of expression usual and possible in that ancient speech-assures us that this Statement, so startlingly direct in its unadorned simplicity, was the accepted mode of conveying a meaning which we, in our more complex and artificial idioms, would convey by the use of a multitude of words, in terms far more abstract, in language destitute of all that colour of life and reality which stamps the idiom of the Bible. It is as though the Divine lay farther off from us moderns; as though the marvellous progress of all that new knowledge of the measureless magnitude of the world, of the power and complexity of its machinery, of the surpassing subtlety and the matchless perfection of its laws and processes, had become an impassable barrier, at least an impenetrable veil, between our minds and God. We have lost the sense of His nearness, of His immediacy, so to speak; because we have gained, and are ever intensifying, a sense of the nearness of the world with which He environs us. Hence, when we speak of Him, we naturally cast about either for poetical phrases and figures, which must always be more or less vague and undefined, or for highly abstract expressions, which may suggest scientific exactness, but are, in truth, scholastic formulae, dry as the dust of the desert, untouched by the breath of life; and even if they affirm a Person, destitute of all those living characters by which we instinctively and without effort recognise Personality. We make only a conventional use of the language of the sacred writers, of the prophets and prophetic historians, of the psalmists, and the legalists, of the Old Testament; the language which is the native expression of a peculiar intensity of religious faith, realising the Unseen as the Actual and, in truth, the only Real. "Judah mourneth and the gates thereof languish, They are clad in black down to the ground; And the cry of Jerusalem hath gone up. And their nobles have sent their lesser folk for water; They have been to the pits, and found no water: Their vessels have come back empty; Ashamed and confounded, they have covered their heads." "Because the ground is chapt, for there hath not been rain in the land, The ploughmen are ashamed, they have covered their heads. For even the hind in the field hath yeaned and forsaken her fawn, For there is no grass. And the wild asses stand on the bare fells They snuff the wind like jackals Their eyes fall, for there is no pasturage." "If our sins have answered against us, Iahweh, act for Thine own Name sake; For our relapses are many: Against Thee have we trespassed." "Hope of Israel, that savest him in time of trouble, Wherefore wilt Thou be as a stranger in the land, And as a traveller that leaveth the road but for the night? Wherefore wilt Thou be as a man o’erpowered with sleep, As a warrior that cannot rescue?" "Sith Thou art in our midst, O Iahvah, And Thy Name upon us hath been called; Cast us not down!" How beautiful both plaint and prayer! The simple description of the effects of the drought is as lifelike and impressive as a good picture. The whole country is stricken; the city gates, the place of common resort, where the citizens meet for business and for conversation, are gloomy with knots of mourners robed in black from head to foot, or, as the Hebrew may also imply, sitting on the ground, in the garb and posture of desolation. { Lamentations 2:10 ; Lamentations 3:28 } The magnates of Jerusalem send out their retainers to find water; and we see them returning with empty vessels, their heads muffled in their cloaks, in sign of grief at the failure of their errand. { 1 Kings 18:5-6 } The parched ground everywhere gapes with fissures; the yeomen go about with covered heads in deepest dejection. The distress is universal, and affects not man only, but the brute creation. Even the gentle hind, that proverb of maternal tenderness, is driven by sorest need to forsake the fruit of her hard travail; her starved dugs are dry, and she flies from her helpless offspring. The wild asses of the desert, fleet, beautiful, and keen-eyed creatures, scan the withered landscape from the naked cliffs, and snuff the wind, like jackals scenting prey; but neither sight nor smell suggests relief. There is no moisture in the air, no glimpse of pasture in the wide sultry land. The prayer is a humble confession of sin, an unreserved admission that the woes of man evince the righteousness of God. Unlike certain modern poets, who bewail the sorrows of the world as the mere infliction of a harsh and arbitrary and inevitable Destiny, Jeremiah makes no doubt that human sufferings are due to the working of Divine justice. "Our sins have answered against our pleas at Thy judgment seat; our relapses are many; against Thee have we trespassed," against Thee, the sovereign Disposer of events, the Source of all that happens and all that is. If this be so, what plea is left? None, but that appeal to the Name of Iahvah, with which the prayer begins and ends. "Act for Thine own Name sake." "Thy Name upon us hath been called." Act for Thine own honour, that is, for the honour of Mercy, Compassion, Truth, Goodness; which Thou hast revealed Thyself to be, and which are parts of Thy glorious Name. { Exodus 34:6 } Pity the wretched, and pardon the guilty: for so will Thy glory increase amongst men; so will man learn that the relentings of love are diviner affections than the ruthlessness of wrath and the cravings of vengeance. There is also a touching appeal to the past. The very name by which Israel was sometimes designated as "the people of Iahvah," just as Moab was known by the name of its god as "the people of Chemosh," { Numbers 21:29 } is alleged as proof that the nation has an interest in the compassion of Him whose name it bears; and it is implied that, since the world knows Israel as Iahvah’s people, it will not be for Iahvah’s honour that this people should be suffered to perish in their sins. Israel had thus, from the outset of its history, been associated and identified with Iahvah; however ill the true nature of the tie has been understood, however unworthily the relation has been conceived by the popular mind, however little the obligations involved in the call of their fathers have been recognised and appreciated. God must be true, though man be false. There is no weakness, no caprice, no vacillation in God. In bygone "times of trouble" the "Hope of Israel" had saved Israel over and over again; it was a truth admitted by all-even by the prophet’s enemies. Surely then He will save His people once again, and vindicate His Name of Saviour. Surely He who has dwelt in their midst so many changeful centuries, will not now behold their trouble with the lukewarm feeling of an alien dwelling amongst them for a time, but unconnected with them by ties of blood and kin and common country; or with the indifference of the traveller who is but coldly affected by the calamities of a place where he has only lodged one night. Surely the entire past shows that it would be utterly inconsistent for Iahvah to appear now as a man so buried in sleep that He cannot be roused to save His friends from imminent destruction. {cf. 1 Kings 18:27 , St. Mark 4:38 } He who had borne Israel and carried him as a tender nursling all the days of old ( Isaiah 63:9 ) could hardly without changing His own unchangeable Name, His character and purposes, cast down His people and forsake them at last. Such is the drift of the prophet’s first prayer. To this apparently unanswerable argument his religious meditation upon the present distress has brought him. But presently the thought returns with added force, with a sense of utmost certitude, with a conviction that it is Iahvah’s Word, that the people have wrought out their own affliction, that misery is the hire of sin. "Thus hath Iahvah said of this people: Even so have they loved to wander, Their feet they have not refrained; And as for Iahvah, He accepteth them not"; "He now remembereth their guilt, And visiteth their trespasses. And Iahvah said unto me, Intercede thou not for this people for good! If they fast, I will not hearken unto their cry; And if they offer whole offering and oblation, I will not accept their persons; But by the sword, the famine, and the plague, will I consume them." "And I said, Ah, Lord Iahvah! Behold the prophets say to them, Ye shall not see sword, And famine shall not befall you For peace and permanence will I give you in this place." "And Iahvah said unto me: Falsehood it is that the prophets prophesy in My Name. I sent them not, and I charged them not, and I spake not unto them. A vision of falsehood and jugglery and nothingness, and the guile of their own heart, They, for their part, prophesy you." "Therefore thus said Iahvah: Concerning the prophets who prophesy in My Name, albeit I sent them not, And of themselves say Sword and famine there shall not be in this land; By the sword and by the famine shall those prophets be fordone. And the people to whom they prophesy shall lie thrown out in the streets of Jerusalem, Because of the famine and the sword, With none to bury them,"- "Themselves, their wives, and their sons and their daughters: And I will pour upon them their own evil. And thou shalt say unto them this word: Let mine eyes run down with tears, night and day, And let them not tire; For with mighty breach is broken The virgin daughter of my people- With a very grievous blow. If I go forth into the field, Then behold! the slain of the sword; And if I enter the city, Then behold! the pinings of famine: For both prophet and priest go trafficking about the land, And understand not." It has been supposed that this whole section is misplaced, and that it would properly follow the close of chapter 13. The supposition is due to a misapprehension of the force of the pregnant particle which introduces the reply of Iahvah to the prophet’s intercession. "Even so have they loved to wander"; even so, as is naturally implied by the severity of the punishment of which thou complainest. The dearth is prolonged; the distress is widespread and grievous. So prolonged, so grievous, so universal, has been their rebellion against Me. The penalty corresponds to the offence. It is really "their own evil" that is being poured out upon their guilty heads ( Jeremiah 14:16 ; cf. Jeremiah 4:18 ). Iahvah cannot accept them in their sin; the long drought is a token that their guilt is before His mind, unrepented, unatoned. Neither the supplications of another, nor their own fasts and sacrifices, avail to avert the visitation. So long as the disposition of the heart remains unaltered; so long as man hates, not his darling sins, but the penalties they entail, it is idle to seek to propitiate Heaven by such means as these. And not only so. The droughts are but a foretaste of worse evils to come; "by the sword, the famine, and the plague will I consume them." The condition is understood, If they repent and amend not. This is implied by the prophet’s seeking to palliate the national guilt, as he proceeds to do, by the suggestion that the people are more sinned against than sinning, deluded as they are by false prophets; as also by the renewal of his intercession ( Jeremiah 14:19 ). Had he been aware in his inmost heart that an irreversible sentence had gone forth against his people, would he have been likely to think either excuses or intercessions availing? Indeed, however absolute the threats of the prophetic preachers may sound, they must, as a rule, be qualified by this limitation, which, whether expressed or not, is inseparable from the object of their discourses, which was the moral amendment of those who heard them. Of the "false," that is, the common run of prophets, who were in league with the venal priesthood of the time, and no less worldly and self-seeking than their allies, we note that, as usual, they foretell what the people wishes to hear; "Peace (Prosperity), and Permanence," is the burden of their oracles. They knew that invectives against prevailing vices, and denunciations of national follies, and forecasts of approaching ruin, were unlikely means of winning popularity and a substantial harvest of offerings. At the same time, like other false teachers, they knew how to veil their errors under the mask of truth; or rather, they were themselves deluded by their own greed, and blinded by their covetousness to the plain teaching of events. They might base their doctrine of "Peace and Permanence in this place!" upon those utterances of the great Isaiah, which had been so signally verified in the lifetime of the seer himself; but their keen pursuit of selfish ends, their moral degradation, caused them to shut their eyes to everything else in his teachings, and, like his contemporaries, they "regarded not the work of Iahvah, nor the operation of His hand." Jeremiah accuses them of "lying visions"; visions, as he explains, which were the outcome of magical ceremonies, by aid of which, perhaps, they partially deluded themselves, before deluding others, but which were none the less, "things of naught," devoid of all substance, and mere fictions of a deceitful and self-deceiving mind ( Jeremiah 14:14 ). He expressly declares that they have no mission: in other words, their action is not due to the overpowering sense of a higher call, but is inspired by purely ulterior considerations of worldly gain and policy. They prophesy to order; to the order of man, not of God. If they visit the country districts, it is with no spiritual end in view; priest and prophet alike make a trade of their sacred profession, and, immersed in their sordid pursuits, have no eye for truth, and no perception of the dangers hovering over their country. Their misconduct and misdirection of affairs are certain to bring destruction upon themselves and upon those whom they mislead. War and its attendant famine will devour them all. But the day of grace being past, nothing is left for the prophet himself but to bewail the ruin of his people ( Jeremiah 14:17 ). He will betake himself to weeping, since praying and preaching are vain. The words which announce this resolve may portray a sorrowful experience, or they may depict the future as though it were already present ( Jeremiah 14:17-18 ). The latter interpretation would suit Jeremiah 14:17 , but hardly the following verse, with its references to "going forth into the field," and "entering into the city." The way in which these specific actions are mentioned seems to imply some present or recent calamity; and there is apparently no reason why we may not suppose that the passage was written at the disastrous close of the reign of Josiah, in the troublous interval of three months, when Jehoahaz was nominal king in Jerusalem, but the Egyptian arms were probably ravaging the country, and striking terror into the hearts of the people. In such a time of confusion and bloodshed, tillage would be neglected, and famine would naturally follow; and these evils would be greatly aggravated by drought. The only other period which suits is the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim; but the former seems rather to be indicated by Jeremiah 15:6-9 . Heartbroken at the sight of the miseries of his country, the prophet once more approaches the eternal throne. His despairing mood is not so deep and dark as to drown his faith in God. He refuses to believe the utter rejection of Judah, the revocation of the covenant. (The measure is Pentameter). "Hast Thou indeed cast off Judah? Hath Thy soul revolted from Sion? Why hast Thou smitten us past healing? Waiting for peace, and no good came, For a time of healing, and behold terror!" "We know, Iahvah, our wickedness, our fathers’ guilt; For we have trespassed toward Thee. Scorn Thou not, for Thy Name sake Disgrace not Thy glorious throne! Remember, break not, Thy covenant with us!" "Are there, in sooth, among the Nothings of the nations senders of rain? And is it the heavens that bestow the showers? Is it not Thou, Iahvah our God? And we wait for Thee, For Thou it was that madest the world." To all this the Divine answer is stern and decisive. "And Iahvah said unto me: If Moses and Samuel were to stand" (pleading) "before Me, My mind would not be towards this people: send them away from before Me" (dismiss them from My Presence), "that they may go forth!" After ages remembered Jeremiah as a mighty intercessor, and the brave Maccabeus could see him in his dream as a grey-haired man "exceeding glorious" and "of a wonderful and excellent majesty" who "prayed much for the people and for the holy city" ( 2Ma 15:14 ). And the beauty of the prayers which lie like scattered pearls of faith and love among the prophet’s soliloquies is evident at a glance. But here Jeremiah himself is conscious that his prayers are unavailing; and that the office to which God has called him is rather that of pronouncing judgment than of interceding for mercy. Even a Moses or a Samuel, the mighty intercessors of the old heroic times, whose pleadings had been irresistible with God, would now plead in vain Exodus 17:11 sqq., Exodus 32:11 sqq.; Numbers 14:13 sqq. for Moses; 1 Samuel 7:9 sqq., 1 Samuel 12:16 sqq.; Psalm 99:6 ; Sir 46:16 sqq. for Samuel. The day of grace has gone, and the day of doom is come. His sad function is to "send them away" or "let them go" from Iahvah’s Presence; to pronounce the decree of their banishment from the holy land where His temple is, and where they have been wont to "see His face." The main part of his commission was "to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to overthrow" ( Jeremiah 1:10 ). "And if they say unto thee, Whither are we to go forth? Thou shalt say uno them, thus hath Iahvah said: They that belong to the Death" ( i.e., the Plague; as the Black Death was spoken of in mediaeval Europe) "to death; and they that belong to the Sword, to the sword; and they that belong to the Famine, to famine: and they that belong to Captivity, to captivity!" The people were to "go forth" out of their own land, which was, as it were, the Presence chamber of Iahvah, just as they had at the outset of their history gone forth out of Egypt, to take possession of it. The words convey a sentence of exile, though they do not indicate the place of banishment. The menace of woe is as general in its terms as that lurid passage of the Book of the Law upon which it appears to be founded. { Deuteronomy 28:21-26 } The time for the accomplishment of those terrible threatenings "is nigh, even at the doors." On the other hand, Ezekiel’s "four sore judgments" { Ezekiel 14:21 } were suggested by this passage of Jeremiah. The prophet avoids naming the actual destination of the captive people, because captivity is only one element in their punishment. The horrors of war-sieges and slaughters and pestilence and famine-must come first. In what follows, the intensity of these horrors is realised in a single touch. The slain are left unburied, a prey to the birds and beasts. The elaborate care of the ancients in the provision of honourable resting places for the dead is a measure of the extremity, thus indicated. In accordance with the feeling of his age, the prophet ranks the dogs and vultures and hyenas that drag and disfigure and devour the corpses of the slain, as three "kinds" of evil equally appalling with the sword that slays. The same feeling led our Spenser to write: "To spoil the dead of weed Is sacrilege, and doth all sins exceed." And the destruction of Moab is decreed by the earlier prophet Amos, "because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime," thus violating a law universally recognised as binding upon the conscience of nations. { Amos 2:1 } Cf. also Genesis 23:1-20 . Thus death itself was not to be a sufficient expiation for the inveterate guilt of the nation. Judgment was to pursue them even after death. But the prophet’s vision does not penetrate beyond this present scene. With the visible world, so far as he is aware, the punishment terminated. He gives no hint here, nor elsewhere, of any further penalties awaiting individual sinners in the unseen world. The scope of his prophecy indeed is almost purely national, and limited to the present life. It is one of the recognized conditions of Old Testament religious thought. And the ruin of the people is the retribution reserved for what Manasseh did in Jerusalem. To the prophet, as to the author of the book of Kings, who wrote doubtless under the influence of his words, the guilt contracted by Judah trader that wicked king was unpardonable But it would convey a false impression if we left the matter here: for the whole course of his after preaching-his exhortations and promises, as well as his threats-prove that Jeremiah did not suppose that the nation could not be saved by genuine repentance and permanent amendment. What he intends rather to affirm is that the sins of the fathers will be visited upon children who are partakers of their sins. It is the doctrine of St. Matthew 23:29 sqq.; a doctrine which is not merely a theological opinion, but a matter of historical observation. "And I will set over them four kinds-It is an oracle of Iahvah-the sword to slay, and the dogs to hale, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and to destroy. And I will make them a sport for all the realms of earth; on account of Manasseh ben Hezekiah king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem." Jerusalem!-the mention of that magical name touches another chord in the prophet’s soul; and the fierce tones of his oracle of doom change into a dirge-like strain of pity without hope. "For who will have compassion on Thee, O Jerusalem? And who will yield thee comfort? And who will turn aside to ask of thy welfare? ‘Twas thou that rejectedst Me (it is Iahvah’s word); Backward wouldst thou wend: So I stretched forth My hand against thee and destroyed thee; I wearied of relenting. And I winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land; I bereaved, I undid My people: Yet they returned not from their own ways. His widows outnumbered before Me the sand of seas: I brought them against the Mother of Warriors a harrier at high noon; I threw upon her suddenly anguish and horrors. She that had borne seven sons did pine away; She breathed out her soul. Her sun did set, while it yet was day; He blushed and paled. But their remnant will I give to the sword Before their foes: (It is Iahvah’s word)." The fate of Jerusalem would strike the nations dumb with horror; it would not inspire pity, for man would recognise that it was absolutely just. Or perhaps the thought rather is, In proving false to Me, thou wert false to thine only friend: Me thou hast estranged by thy faithlessness; and from the envious rivals, who beset thee on every side, thou canst expect nothing but rejoicing at thy downfall. { Psalm 136:1-26 ; Lamentations 2:15-17 ; Obadiah 1:10 sqq.} The peculiar solitariness of Israel among the nations { Numbers 23:9 } aggravated the anguish of her overthrow. In what follows, the dreadful past appears as a prophecy of the yet more terrible future. The poet-seer’s pathetic monody moralises the lost battle of Megiddo-that fatal day when the sun of Judah set in what seemed the high day of her prosperity, and all the glory and the promise of good king Josiah vanished like a dream in sudden darkness. Men might think-doubtless Jeremiah thought, in the first moments of despair, when the news of that overwhelming disaster was brought to Jerusalem, with the corpse of the good king, the dead hope of the nation-that this crushing blow was proof that Iahvah had rejected His people, in the exercise of a sovereign caprice, and without reference to their own attitude towards Him. But, says or chants the prophet, in solemn rhythmic utterance, "‘Twas thou that rejectedst Me; Backward wouldst thou wend: So I stretched forth My hand against thee, and wrought thee hurt; I wearied of relenting." The cup of national iniquity was full, and its baleful contents overflowed in a devastating flood. "In the gates of the land"-the point on the northwest frontier where the armies met-Iahvah doomed to fall from those who were to survive, as the winnowing fan separates the chaff from the wheat in the threshing floor. There He "bereaved" the nation of their dearest hope, "the breath of their nostrils, the Lord’s Anointed"; { Lamentations 4:20 } there He multiplied their widows. And after the lost battle He brought the victor in hot haste against the "Mother" of the fallen warriors, the ill-fated city, Jerusalem, to wreak vengeance upon her for her ill-timed opposition. But, for all this bitter fruit of their evil doings, the people "turned not back from their own ways"; and therefore the strophe of lamentation closes with a threat of utter extermination: "Their remnant"-the poor survival of these fierce storms" Their remnant will I give to the sword before their foes." If the thirteenth and fourteenth verses be not a mere interpolation in this chapter, {see Jeremiah 17:3-4 } their proper place would seem to be here, as continuing and amplifying the sentence upon the residue of the people. The text is unquestionably corrupt, and must be amended by help of the other passage, where it is partially repeated. The twelfth verse may be read thus: "Thy wealth and thy treasures will I make a prey, For the sin of thine high places in all thy borders." Then the fourteenth verse follows, naturally enough, with an announcement of the Exile: "And I will enthral thee to thy foes In a land thou knowest not: For a fire is kindled in Mine anger, That shall burn for evermore!" The prophet has now fulfilled his function of judge by pronouncing upon his people the extreme penalty of the law. His strong perception of the national guilt and of the righteousness of God has left him no choice in the matter. But how little this duty of condemnation accorded with his own individual feeling as a man and a citizen is clear from the passionate outbreak of the succeeding strophe. "Woe’s me, my mother," he exclaims, "that thou barest me, A man of strife and a man of contention to all the country! Neither lender nor borrower have I been; Yet all of them do curse me." A desperately bitter tone, evincing the anguish of a man wounded to the heart by the sense of fruitless endeavour and unjust hatred. He had done his utmost to save his country, and his reward was universal detestation. His innocence and integrity were requited with the odium of the pitiless creditor who enslaves his helpless victim, and appropriates his all; or the fraudulent borrower who repays a too ready confidence with ruin. The next two verses answer this burst of grief and despair: "Said Iahvah, Thine oppression shall be for good; I will make the foe thy suppliant in time of evil and in time of distress. Can one break iron, Iron from the north, and brass?" In other words, faith counsels patience, and assures the prophet that all things work together for good to them that love God. The wrongs and bitter treatment which he now endures will only enchance his triumph when the truth of his testimony is at last confirmed by events, and they who now scoff at his message come humbly to beseech his prayers. The closing lines refer, with grave irony, to that unflinching firmness, that inflexible resolution, which, as a messenger of God, he was called upon to maintain. He is reminded of what he had undertaken at the outset of his career, and of the Divine Word which made him "a pillar of iron and walls of brass against all the land". { Jeremiah 1:18 } Is it possible that the pillar of iron can be broken, and the walls of brass beaten down by the present assault? There is a pause, and then the prophet vehemently pleads his own cause with Iahvah. Smarting with the sense of personal wrong, he urges that his suffering is for the Lord’s own sake; that consciousness of the Divine calling has dominated his entire life, ever since his dedication to the prophetic office; and that the honour of Iahvah requires his vindication upon his heartless and hardened adversaries. Thou knowest, Iahvah! Remember me, and visit me, and avenge me on my persecutors. Take me not away in thy long suffering; Regard my bearing of reproach for Thee. Thy words were found and I did eat them, And it became to me a joy and mine heart’s gladness; For I was called by Thy Name, O Iahvah, God of Sabaoth! I sate not in the gathering of the mirthful, nor rejoiced; Because of Thine hand I sate solitary, For with indignation Thou didst fill me. "Why hath my pain become perpet

Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind could not be towards this people. Jeremiah 15:1 Righteousness, the strength of nations H. Melvill, B. D. It is of great importance that we distinguish between communities, and the individuals of which communities are composed. When the whole human race shall be gathered before the tribunal of Christ, every man will receive the recompense due to his actions whilst on earth. But nations cannot be judged or punished as nations; so if God is to mark His sense of the evil wrought by communities in their collective capacity, it must be by present retribution. Accordingly we have full testimony given from Scripture and from experience, that although, in the ordinary course of Divine judgment, individuals are not in this life dealt with according to their actions, yet communities may expect to prosper or decline according as they resist or submit to the revealed will of God. The national character must be determined by the character of the majority; and when this character is so debased that the national punishment can no longer be delayed, there may be numbers influenced by a holy and unaffected piety, and warm love of God. And can these faithful ones be instruments in averting or mitigating wrath? Or if they cannot prevail for the deliverance of others, will they not at least be saved from all share in the coming disaster? These are interesting questions; and the best answer can be drawn from the words of our text. Moses and Samuel are supposed to stand forth as pleaders for the land; they are too late — pleading is in vain. Still it is evidently implied that at a less advanced stage in national guilt the intercession would have been of avail. Then, moreover, a distinction is evidently drawn between a guilty people and such advocates as Moses and Samuel. The people are to be "cast out"; but we are left to infer that such as Moses and Samuel would not share to the full extent in the national disaster. Let us look more closely into these points. Call to mind that remarkable portion of Holy Writ in which Abraham is represented as pleading for Sodom. If the city would have been spared had these ten righteous lived within its walls, there is incontrovertible proof that godly men are the salt of the earth, and may often be instrumental in preserving communities from utter desolation. It was not without a very emphatic meaning that Christ styled His disciples "the salt of the earth." By their mere presence in the midst of ungodly men, and yet more, by their prayers and intercessions, may the righteous often arrest vengeance and prevent the utter ruin of a country. The wicked know nothing of their obligations to the righteous. In general, they despise or hate the righteous — either accounting them fools, or galled by the reproof conveyed by their example. If they had what they wish, they would remove the righteous from amongst them, reckoning that they should then have greater freedom in pursuing their schemes, or enjoying their pleasures. And little do they think that these very objects of their scorn and dislike may be all the while their best guardians and benefactors; turning aside from them evils by which they might be otherwise rapidly overtaken, and procuring for them a lengthened portion of Divine patience and forbearance. Little do they think that the worst thing possible for their country and themselves is when there is a rapid diminution in the number of the righteous; every good man who dies and leaves no successor being as a practical withdrawal from that leaven which alone stays the progress of the universal decomposition. Now we have reached the point at which piety ceases to have power in averting evil from others. What does it, then, do for the pious themselves? Intercession time has gone — the judgment time has come; and every man must be dealt with according to his own character. But if righteousness then lose its power to avail with God for others, besides its possessors; and if on this account the righteous may well shrink from such seasons, yet it appears certain that righteousness is as acceptable as ever to God, and that therefore the righteous have nothing to fear individually for themselves. Come plague! come depopulation! if thou art indeed a devoted, consistent servant of God, they shall not touch thee till the time has come which has been fixed by thy merciful Father! "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee." The funeral procession may wend often from their doors, bearing away (it is melancholy to think) those for whose salvation they have long prayed, and for whom they have daily sought a further day of grace; but they themselves shall be unassailed till the day which, in any case, God had fixed for their entry into rest; and thus shall the pestilence, whose ravages in their households did but fit them for higher glory, do only the part of common sickness in freeing them from a corruptible body. And, therefore, may those in whose hearts is "the fear of the Lord," hear without trepidation what God says about bringing His sore judgments on a land. There are two very important considerations suggested by the subject we have thus endeavoured to discuss. 1. We wish you to observe that he who serves God, serves his country best. 2. We ask you to observe that whatever the advantages which a man derives from having pious relatives, there is a point at which those relatives can afford him no help. ( H. Melvill, B. D. ) Intercessory prayer W. Whale. I. INTERCESSORY PRAYER IS AN EXERCISE OF GREAT VALUE. 1. As developing our love to man. Interesting ourselves in his trials, seeking to save him from his sins. 2. As carrying out the Divine precepts. In the spirit of Christ, in the fellowship of life. 3. As following after noble examples. 4. As obtaining great blessings for others. II. INTERCESSORY PRAYER CAN BE OFFERED ONLY BY GOOD MEN. 1. He must not be under the sin against which he prays. 2. He should know by experience the value of the blessing he craves for another. 3. He must be willing to join effort with prayer. III. INTERCESSORY PRAYER HAS SOME LIMITATIONS EVEN WHEN OFFERED BY THE BEST OF MEN. This is evident — 1. From Scripture. 2. From observation. IV. INTERCESSORY PRAYER IS A GRAND DISTINCTION AND PROVISION OF THE GOSPEL. We have — 1. The best of intercessors ( Hebrews 7:25 ). In office, sympathy, work, influence. 2. Praying for the best of blessings. Salvation, preservation, comfort, glory. 3. Taking up the ease of every soul that trusts Him. 4. Always successful. ( W. Whale. ) Intercession rejected The Hebrews had justly a very high opinion of Moses. How proudly they boasted, "We are the disciples of Moses!" As the late Dr. R.W. Dale has pointed out, "More than Luther is to Germany, more than Napoleon is to France, more than Alfred, or Elizabeth, or Cromwell, or William III. is to England, Moses was to the Jewish people — prophet, patriot, warrior, lawgiver, all in one." Yet even so great a servant of God as Moses together with the famous seer Samuel, would avail nothing in intercession for the Jews at this time. My mind, saith the Lord, could not be toward this people. Thou hast forsaken Me. Jeremiah 15:6-9 God forsaking and God forsaken W. Whale. I. A GOD-FORSAKING PEOPLE. Conviction by God Himself of this great folly and sin. In Jeremiah 2:13 , the charge is more complete. Creation is called upon to express surprise at a folly so conspicuous. 1. "Thou" — who oughtest to have been unto Me a loyal and loving people, testifying of My power and grace, and proving by separation from the nation your preference for the living and true God. 2. "Hast forsaken" — not simply forgotten, or disobeyed, but of deliberate choice hast taken other gods, and disregarded Jehovah. 3. "Me" — who called Abraham, etc. II. A GOD-FORSAKEN PEOPLE. 1. Always retrograde. Unless they repent and obey God, there is no way forward and upward. 2. Always in danger of destruction. If we forsake the mercy, we inherit the misery. 3. Always exposed to terrors and disasters. 4. Always drifting into languor, premature decline, shame, and death. ( W. Whale. ) How men forsake God D. L. Moody. A rule I have had for years is to treat the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal friend. It is not a creed, a mere empty doctrine, but it is Christ Himself we have. The moment we receive Christ we should receive Him as a friend. When I go away from home I bid my wife and children good-bye; I bid my friends and acquaintances good-bye; but I never heard of a poor backslider going down on his knees and saying, "I have been near You for ten years. Your service has become tedious and monotonous. I have come to bid You farewell. Good-bye, Lord Jesus Christ!" I never heard of one doing this. I will tell you how they go away; they just run away. ( D. L. Moody. ) I am weary with repenting. Jeremiah 15:6 The Almighty weary with repenting D. Moore, M. A. I. GOD REPENTING. God condescends to designate His conduct by that name. The expression may be inadequate and defective, but still language had nothing better to describe the idea, nor human experience to represent the fact. When God is pleased to speak of Himself as pitying, repenting, grieving for man's sake, what is evidently intended is, that so intense is His love for man, that were His infinite nature capable of these creature passions, His love would show itself in these very forms. II. GOD PROVOKED TO A DEGREE THAT HE CAN REPENT NO MORE. He is "weary with repenting": worn and tired out with having to cancel threatened sentences so often — as a potentate of earth might be at finding that every fresh display of patience in his subjects masked but deeper hatred to his rule, and every amnesty he declared was but a signal for raising the standard of rebellion anew. What can man do, to move the Author of his being to regard him in this way? We must not speculate; we must let the great God speak for Himself; we must try to gather out of other Scriptures what those things are which are said to weary God, wear out His patience, make Him tired of His forgivenesses, reprieves, and revoked sentences. 1. Among these provocations we may note hypocrisy and allowed formality in religious duty ( Isaiah 1:13, 14 ). 2. We may make God weary by presumptuous and unwarranted calculations upon His mercy ( Malachi 2:17 ). 3. Another thing Scripture teaches us wearies, puts God out of patience, is unbelief, a restoring to creature trust and dependencies, a want of simplicity and unreservedness in accepting His promises, as if we thought He would not pay them in full, or did not mean them to be taken by us, in all their length and breadth, and depth and worth. 4. The awful limit prescribed in the text may be reached, and the Divine forbearance tasked one step too far, by provocations after mercies. ( D. Moore, M. A. ) Jehovah weary with repenting W. Whale. The fact that God is "weary of repenting" shows — 1. That God had often turned from His threatenings, and dealt in mercy with the people. 2. That the Divine mercy had been frequently abused, and the people had gone back again to their sins. 3. That not a change in His being, but only a change of relationship, is expressed by the word "repent." 4. That judgment is alien to God's heart, whereas mercy is His delight. 5. That when God is met with persistent ingratitude, and men relapse continually into sin, He must eventually punish them. 6. That the operations of the Divine mind can only be expressed in human language with difficulty and limitation. 7. That we should be careful not to trifle with or abuse, the patient long-suffering of God. ( W. Whale. ) Divine judgments and man's relation to them W. Brooke. Famine, pestilence, revolution, war, are judgments of the Ruler of the world. What sort of a ruler, we ask, is He? The answer to that question will determine the true sense of the term — the judgment of God. The heathen saw Him as a passionate, capricious, changeable Being, who could be angered and appeased by men. The Jewish prophet saw Him as a God whose ways were equal, who was unchangeable, who was not to be bought off by sacrifices but pleased by righteous dealing, and who would remove the punishment when the causes which brought it on were taken away; in other words, when men repented God would repent. That does not mean that He changed His laws to relieve them of their suffering, but that they changed their relationships to His law, so that, to them thus changed, God seemed to change. A boat rows against the stream; the current punishes it. So is a nation violating the law of God, it is subject to punishment, judgment. The boat turns and goes with the stream; and the current assists it. So is a nation which has repented and put itself into harmony with God's law; it is subject to a blessing. But the current is the same; it has not changed, only the boat has changed its relation to the current. Neither does God change — we change; and the same law which executed itself in punishment now expresses itself in reward. ( W. Brooke. ) Her sun is gone down while it is yet day. Jeremiah 15:9 Beautiful, but brief W. Whale. I. HER LIFE WAS LIKE THE SUN IN ITS SHINING. 1. Gloriously bright with faith and joy. 2. Blessedly useful in diffusing light. 3. Constantly comforting, by its warmth of love and hope. 4. Christianly generous, always giving. 5. A centre of attraction, in the house, in the class, in the social circle, and in the Church. II. HER DEATH WAS LIKE THE SUN IN ITS SETTING. 1. Gradual 2. Beautiful. 3. Peaceful. 4. To rise again. III. HER SUNSET WAS EARLY IN THE DAY OF LIFE. 1. In the prime and beauty of being. 2. In the midst of work. 3. It seems unnatural, and suggests questions. 4. It is an interposition of God in His providence, doubtless wise and loving. 5. It leads us from the creature to the. Creator. 6. It suggests that we be all ready, always ready. ( W. Whale. ) Premature sunset W. Whale. I. IN NATURE. 1. Would be unnatural. 2. Would be injurious to all life. 3. Would make us less confident as to the unerring regularity of nature's law. II. IN HISTORY. Many cases in which nations have fallen, not with decrepitude of age, but through early and self-wrought ruin. III. IN INDIVIDUAL LIFE. The young, the immoral, the unprincipled in character generally. Obedience to God gives a long day and beautiful sunset. ( W. Whale. ) The Christian's sun W. J. Stuart. I. THE CHRISTIAN HAS A SUN. A Sun is a globe which keeps other globes in connection with it in their proper spheres and at their assigned work, and which imports light and heat to them and to all the creatures which inhabit them. In a sense, all men have a sun to which they look for present and future good. But it differs with different men. With some it is nature; some, the traditions of their fathers; some, fancied superior morality; and the portion of good to every man, with regard to its character and intent, is determined by the capability and quality of his sun. Oh, how miserably off must be all who depend on the finite! The Christian does not. His sun is Jesus as set forth in Holy Writ. From Him every true believer has the light and heat of spiritual life, and through Him he gets into his place, and is put to his appropriate work in creation ( John 1:1-14 ; John 8:12 ; John 12:46 ). Receptivity is the beginning of that state of mind which, if rightly followed up, issues in the likeness, love, and enjoyment of God; and as Jesus, the source to which the Christian looks for lasting, ennobling good, is infinite, his felicity and glory will be forever enlarging. II. THE CHRISTIAN IS SUNNIFIED BY HIS SUN. He is a retainer, as well as a receiver, of its beneficent outflow. All the colours, and all the shades of colours, and every form of animal and vegetable life, are owing to the retention and appropriation of solar rays. The wealth, and beauty, and blessed activity of earth arise in this way. In like manner, the rays of the world's spiritual Sun — the divinely inspired record of the history of incarnate Deity — must be kept and fittingly used if His fruits are to be enjoyed. III. THE CHRISTIAN SUNNIFIES OTHERS. He is a reflector and spreader of the brightness and goodness of his sun. "Ye are the light of the world." The globes which emit light and heat as well as have them, the animals which add usefulness to life, and the flowers which are fragrant besides being beautiful, are highest in the scale of existence and of greatest worth. To those Christians who are active besides being pious, who spread the Gospel in addition to living it, who enrich and bless others as well as seek to be enriched and blessed themselves, are the most like Jesus, the most dear to the Father, the most useful to men, the most honoured in the Church. Their death is a calamity to others, but auspicious to themselves. Apply the subject — 1. To sinners. Get spiritual light and life while you can. 2. To saints. Prize and make good use of your privileges. Diffuse your light. 3. To Christian workers.Be not weary in works of faith and labours of love. The more light you spread, and the more men you illumine, the greater your joy now, the greater your blessedness hereafter. ( W. J. Stuart. ) Death the setting of the sun Homilist. I. The sun, in setting, DISAPPEARS FROM VIEW. As the great central orb is lost to our part of the world as he sinks beneath the horizon, so man is lost to the view of earth as he descends to the grave. The "places that knew him know him no more." II. The sun in setting OBEYS ITS LAW. "The sun knoweth his going down." Death is a law of nature. It is as natural for the body to die as for the sun to go down. III. The sun in setting is OFTEN GORGEOUS. Often have we seen the monarch of the day ride down in a chariot of glittering gold. Many a man has died under a halo of moral splendour. Like Stephen, they have seen the heavens open, and reflected the celestial rays as they came down. IV. The SETTING SUN WILL RISE AGAIN. So with man in death. He does not go out of existence: he only sinks from view, and sinks to rise again in new splendour. Conclusion — Let us fulfil our mission as the sun does his, move in our little circle in harmony with Divine law, enlightening, vivifying, and beautifying all, and then death need have no terror for us. Our path will be as a "shining light," etc. ( Homilist. ) Sunset at noonday Homiletic Monthly. These words are illustrative of death in life's meridian. They remind us of — I. PREMATURE DARKNESS. Sunsetting is the harbinger of night. 1. In nature. We do not expect sunset until eventide. 2. In morals. The departure of moral integrity. This sun should never set. 3. In physical life. Death is sunset to the aged, at night; to the young, at noon. 4. Unexpected darkness is unanticipated sorrow to community, family, individual. II. UNCOMPLETED WORK. "Man goeth forth unto his work." Ordinarily, man has work enough to last all day; when called away prematurely, he leaves part untouched. So in life's aggregation. In life's morning his work is largely preparatory for mightier accomplishments of his post meridian. III. FRUSTRATED DESIGN. Man lives in the future — (1) intellectually, (2) socially, (3) religiously.Setting suns of life. Permanently overwrought powers. Commercial disasters. Succumbing to evil. In each case failure to realise the hope. IV. A SPEEDIER ENJOYMENT OF REST. Darkness suggests night; night suggests repose. As in the physical, so in the soul's life. "Blessed are the dead," etc. "There remaineth therefore," etc. ( Homiletic Monthly. ) Death in the midst of life J. Burn, D. D. I. THE SUN AS AN EMBLEM OF THE SAINTS OF GOD. When we contemplate the great orb of day we are impressed — 1. With his greatness and elevation. This greatness and elevation fitly represents the true character of the Christian, contrasted with what he was, with what others are around him. Knowledge makes a man great. Grace of God elevates and lifts up to heaven. "I will set him on high," etc. 2. Natural glory and magnificence. The most glorious of all the heavenly bodies. "The king's daughter," etc. ( Psalm 45:13 ). See this strikingly set forth ( 2 Corinthians 3:18 ). 3. As the great diffuser of light and beauty. The Christian is first the recipient of light, and then he is called to shine. "Arise, shine," etc. "So let your light shine," etc. 4. As the chief source of fertility and fruitfulness. Where Christians live there is knowledge, benevolence, happiness, and life. Look at all our institutions of temporal and moral goodness. II. THE SETTING OF THE SUN AS A STRIKING REPRESENTATION OF THE MORALITY OF THE CHRISTIAN. 1. The going down of the sun is a usual and therefore expected event. So sure as he arises we know he will go down. Man is born to die, etc. "I know that Thou wilt bring me to death," etc. "The living know," etc. 2. The period of the going down of the sun is very diversified. Look at the short winter's day and the long summer's day. So in life, — every age is alike mortal, etc. But the text speaks of the sun going down while it is yet day — prematurely. How often is this the case. 3. The going down of the sun is often peculiarly splendid and beautiful. How characteristic of the good man's death! 4. The sun goes down to arise and shine on another horizon. ( J. Burn, D. D. ) A man of strife. Jeremiah 15:10 Men of progress, men of strife W. Whale. I. BECAUSE OF NONCOMPLIANCE WITH POPULAR SINS. Always some interested in doing wrong, and maintaining evil among the people. Those who will not conform, especially such as speak and labour against sin, are considered men of strife. II. BECAUSE THEY ARE IN ADVANCE OF THE AGE. They look at all matters from a more elevated standpoint, and seek to bring the people up to their level. III. BECAUSE THEY ARE EARNEST AND ENERGETIC. Some can be indifferent; true souls cannot be. IV. BECAUSE ALL GOOD WORK CAUSES STRIFE. Evil has to be conquered, the devil to be cast out. No curse will peaceably give place to a blessing. V. BECAUSE THE FIELD OF BATTLE IS THE PATH OF GLORY. Salvation is finally for "him that endureth to the end." "Fight the good fight of faith." ( W. Whale. ) Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? Jeremiah 15:12 The northern iron and steel In order to achieve a purpose there must be sufficient force. The weaker cannot overcome the stronger. In a general clash the firmest will win. You cannot cut granite with a pen knife, nor drill a hole in a rock with an anger of silk. We shall apply this proverb — I. TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD INDIVIDUALLY. 1. Many Christians are subjected to great temptations and persecutions; mocked, ridiculed, called by evil names. Persecuted one, will you deny the faith? If so, you are not made of the same stuff as the true disciple of Jesus Christ; for when the grace of God is in them, if the world be iron, they are northern iron and steel. 2. We are frequently called to serve God amid great difficulties. Will you say, there is no converting these dark and obdurate souls? Is the iron to break the northern iron and steel? Look at Mont Cenis Tunnel, made through one of the hardest rocks; with a sharp tool, edged with diamond, they have pierced the Alps. As St. Bernard says: "Is thy work hard? set a harder resolution against it; for there is nothing so hard that cannot be cut with something harder still." 3. To labour with non-success, and to wait, is hard work. It is a grand thing for a Christian to continue patiently in well-doing. II. Applicable to the cause of God in the world — TO THE CHURCH. What power, however like to iron, shall suffice to break the kingdom of Jesus, which is comparable to steel? 1. We hear it said that Romanism will again vanquish England; that the Gospel light, which Latimer helped to kindle, will be extinguished. Atrocious nonsense, if not partial blasphemy. If this thing were of men, it would come to nought; but if it be of God, who shall overthrow it? 2. Others foretell the triumph of infidelity. That the gates of hell are to prevail against the Church; that the pleasure of the Lord is not to prosper in His hand. Who but a lying spirit would thus lay low the faith and confidence of God's people? III. Apply the principle to THE SELF-RIGHTEOUS EFFORTS WHICH MEN MAKE FOR THEIR OWN SALVATION. 1. The bonds of guilt are not to be snapped by a merely human power. 2. Yet that were an easy task compared with a man renewing his own heart. 3. Do you think you can force your way to heaven by ceremony? Come, sinner, with thy fetters; lay thy wrist at the cross foot, where Christ can break the iron at once. IV. Applicable to all persons who are making SELF-RELIANT EFFORTS FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS. 1. Our preaching — we try to make it forcible — how powerless it is of itself! We plead, reason, seek goodly words, etc., but the northern iron and steel remain immovable. Though all the apostles reasoned with them, they would turn a deaf ear. 2. The best adapted means cannot succeed. A mother's tears, as she spoke to you of Jesus; the pleadings of a grey-headed father over you — no power to change your heart! The Gospel, though put to you very tenderly by those you love best, leaves you unsaved still! You have been sick, near death, within an inch of doom; yet even the judgments of God have not aroused you. V. THIS TEXT HAS A VERY SOLEMN APPLICATION TO ALL THOSE WHO ARE REBELS AGAINST GOD. Fight against God, would you? Measure your adversary, I charge you. The wax is about to wrestle with the flame, the tow to contend with the fire. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Nothing more to be done J. Parker, D. D. It is impossible to explain these words to the satisfaction of all. The general explanation, according to a large consensus of opinion, is that the prayer of the prophet cannot break the inflexible purpose of Jehovah. Jeremiah is still concerned for his countrymen, and he will still pray, though he has been told that if the mightiest intercessors that ever lived were to lift up their heads in devoutest argument they would not be listened to, for heaven was offended, and mighty in just indignation. Now the question is put, not by Jeremiah, but by another: "Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?" Is there any iron in the south that can stand against the iron of the north? Has not the iron of the north been proved in a thousand controversies, and has it ever failed t Who will smite that northern iron with straw? Who will break it with a weapon of wood? Who will set his own frail hand against an instrument so tremendous? The argument, then, would seem to be — Why pray to me for these people? It is as iron applied to the iron of the north, which has been seen to fail in innumerable instances: all the prayers that can now be offered to heaven would be broken upon the threshold of that sanctuary and fall back in fragments upon the weary intercessor; the day has closed, the door is shut, the offended angel of grace has flown away on eagle pinions, and the sister angel of mercy can no longer be found: pray no more for Jerusalem. Thus the Lord dramatically represents Himself; and in all this dramatic reply to the interrogations and pleadings of earth there is a great principle indicated; that principle is that the day closes — "My Spirit shall not always strive with men." These are awful words. If a man had invented them, we should have denied their truthfulness and their force; but when we hear them as from above we confirm them, we say, It is right, we do not deserve to be heard; if we had to assign ourselves to a fate, we dare not plant ha the wilderness of our solitude one single flower; we have done the things we ought not to have done, we have left undone the things we ought to have done; all we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Remember me and visit me. Jeremiah 15:15 The desire to be remembered A. K. H. Boyd, D. D. Jeremiah desires many things; but the thing he asks first, as including all the rest, is that God would not let him drop out of sight and thought. I. THE PERPETUALLY RECURRING PHRASE, "GOD KNOWS," EXPRESSES A MOOD OF THOUGHT COMMON TO RATIONAL CREATURES. 1. A craving everywhere to be remembered. From the lips of the dying, from friends of whom we are taking farewell, fall the words, "Remember me." Ambitious minds, not content that their memorial should be kept in a few hearts, labour that their names may be remembered by multitudes. Oblivion appalls us. 2. The moralist can easily show the vanity of this desire, and the emptiness of the end. What good will it do you, he asks, to be remembered when out amid Australian wilds or on parched Indian plains? or what harm to be forgot? 3. Enough for us, that God so made us that, by the make of our being, we desire to be kindly remembered. II. THE PROPHET SHOWS US THE RIGHT DIRECTION IN WHICH TO TRAIN THIS DESIRE. Pointing to the heaven above, he bids us seek to be remembered there. 1. The thought that such a prayer may be offered to God, teaches us a great deal of His kindliness, condescension, thoughtful care. 2. It was while looking on the kindly human face of Christ, that the whole heart's wish of the poor penitent thief went out in the "Lord, remember me!" 3. It was in special clearness of revelation of God's love, that the Psalmist was emboldened to say, "I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me." III. THE ENCOURAGING VIEW OF THE HEARER OF PRAYER IMPLIED IN THE WORDS OF THE PROPHET'S PETITION. 1. He was not staggered, as he drew near in prayer, by intruding doubt whether the Almighty would listen to his poor words or consider his heart's desires. 2. It is not presumption, but faith, that speaks here. 3. Ponder for your comfort that God "thinketh upon" you "knoweth your frame," etc. IV. IN SUCH INDIVIDUALITY OF PRAYER THERE IS NO SELFISHNESS. It is not the wish to be distinguished above, but to be remembered even as the other members of the family. It is but that when Christ, the great Intercessor, speaks to Almighty God for Himself and His brethren of mankind, saying, in name of all, "Our Father," the poor sinner should not be left out. V. MARK WHAT SIMPLE TRUST IN GOD'S WISDOM AND KINDNESS IS IMPLIED. 1. Everything is asked in that. Enough, just to put oneself under God's eye, just to get God to think of one at all. 2. It is assumed that if God remembers us, it will be in love. 3. God's remembrance is practical. He comes to our help. 4. Doubtless there is a season in the history of the unconverted man in which he can have no real desire that God should remember him: he rather desires to keep out of God's sight and remembrance. 5. Yet the prayer expresses the first reaching after God of the awakened soul ( A. K. H. Boyd, D. D. ) Jeremiah's prayer B. Beddome, M. A. I. THE PROPHET'S PRAYER. 1. "Remember me," O Lord!(1) There is a sense in which God may be said to remember His people so as to take particular knowledge of them, and all that pertains to them. He remembers their persons, knows their exact number, and not one of them shall be lost ( Isaiah 44:21, 22 ; Isaiah 49:14-16 ). He remembers their frailties and infirmities, how unable they are to bear affliction without His support, and hears the gentle whisper and the secret groan with parental tenderness ( Jeremiah 2:2, 3 ). He remembers all their endeavours to serve and please Him, however weak and imperfect they have been; and in instances where they pitied and relieved any of His needy and afflicted ones, without the prospect of reward, and from love to Him, He will bring it to remembrance, and return it all into their bosom ( Hebrews 6:10 ). All the prayers of His people are come up as a memorial before Him, and shall not be forgotten. Sooner or later they shall all be answered, whether they live to see it or not; for God sometimes answers the prayers of His people, after they are gone to their graves, in blessings on their connections and posterity.(2) The Lord not only remembers His people so as to know and notice them, as He does His other works; but in a special manner, so as to delight in them to do them good, and feel a satisfaction in them. He taketh pleasure in the prosperity of His servants, and will exert Himself on their behalf. He will so remember them as to direct them in their difficulties, succour them in their temptations, guard them when in danger, and bring them out of trouble. 2. "And visit me." This implies that where God graciously remembers anyone, He will also visit them. Of the Lord's visits to His people, it may be observed —(1) They are promised, and He will fulfil His word. Thus it was with respect to that long-expected

15:1-9 The Lord declares that even Moses and Samuel must have pleaded in vain. The putting of this as a case, though they should stand before him, shows that they do not, and that saints in heaven do not pray for saints on earth. The Jews were condemned to different kinds of misery by the righteous judgment of God, and the remnant would be driven away, like the chaff, into captivity. Then was the populous city made desolate. Bad examples and misused authority often produce fatal effects, even after men are dead, or have repented of their crimes: this should make all greatly dread being the occasion of sin in others. 15:10-14 Jeremiah met with much contempt and reproach, when they ought to have blessed him, and God for him. It is a great and sufficient support to the people of God, that however troublesome their way may be, it shall be well with them in their latter end. God turns to the people. Shall the most hardy and vigorous of their efforts be able to contend with the counsel of God, or with the army of the Chaldeans? Let them hear their doom. The enemy will treat the prophet well. But the people who had great estates would be used hardly. All parts of the country had added to the national guilt; and let each take shame to itself. 15:15-21 It is matter of comfort that we have a God, to whose knowledge of all things we may appeal. Jeremiah pleads with God for mercy and relief against his enemies, persecutors, and slanderers. It will be a comfort to God's ministers, when men despise them, if they have the testimony of their own consciences. But he complains, that he found little pleasure in his work. Some good people lose much of the pleasantness of religion by the fretfulness and uneasiness of their natural temper, which they indulge. The Lord called the prophet to cease from his distrust, and to return to his work. If he attended thereto, he might be assured the Lord would deliver him from his enemies. Those who are with God, and faithful to him, he will deliver from trouble or carry through it. Many things appear frightful, which do not at all hurt a real believer in Christ.