Ohs. 7. To the ticelve tribes luhicJi are scattered abroad. — ^There was something more in their scattering than ordinary : they were a people whom God for a long time had kept together under the wings of providence. That which is notable in their scattering is : —
1. The severity of God's justice; the twelve tribes are scattered — his own people. It is ill resting on any privileges, when God's Israel may be made strangers. Israel was all for liberty ; therefore God saith, ' I will feed them as a lamb in a large place,' Hosea iv. 16. God would give them liberty and room enough. As a lamb out of the fold goeth up and down bleating in the forest or wilderness, without com- fort and companion, in the midst of wolves and the beasts of the desert — liberty enough, but danger enough ! — so God would cast them out of the fold, and they should live a Jew here and a Jew there, thinly scattered and dispersed throughout the countries, among a peoj^le whose language they understood not, and as a lamb in the midst of the beasts of pre3^ Oh! consider the severity of God's justice; cer- tainly it is a great sin that maketli a loving father cast a child out of doors. Sin is always driving away and casting out ; it drove the angels out of heaven, Adam out of paradise, and Cain out of the church, Gen. iv. 12, IG, and the children of God out of their dwellings: Jer. ix. 19, ' Our dwellings have cast us out.' Your houses v>'iH be weary of you when you dishonour God in them, and you will be driven from those comforts which you abuse to excess ; riot doth but make way for rapine. You shall see in the 6th of Amos, when they were at ease in Sion, they would prostitute David's music to their sportiveness and common banquets: Amos vi. 5, ' They invent to them- selves instruments of music like David.' But for this God threateneth to scatter them, and to remove them from their houses of luxury and pleasure. And when they were driven to the land of a stranger,
* Cbrysostom in Heb. xi.
20 AN EXrOSITIOX, WITH NOTES, [JaS. T. 1.
tlioy were served in their own kind ; tlic Babylonians would have templc-mnsic : Ps. cxxxvii. 3, ' Now let us have one of your Hebrew songs:' nothing but a holy song would serve their profane sport. And so in all such like cases, when we are weary of God in our houses and families, our houses are weary of us. David's house was out of order, and then he was forced to fly from it, 2 Sam. xv. Oh ! then, when you walk in the midst of your comforts, your stately dwellings and houses of pomp and pleasure, be not of Nebuchadnez- zar's s[)irit, when he walked in the ])alace of Babylon, and said, Dan. iv. 30, 'Is not this great Babel, which I have built?' — pride grew upon him by the sight of his comforts ; not of the spirit of those Jews who, when they dwelt within ceiled houses, cried, ' The time to build the Lord's house is not come,' Hag. i. 1,2. They were well, and at ease, and therefore neglected God ; — but of David's spirit, who, when he went into his stately palace, serious thoughts and purposes of honouring God arose within his spirit: 2 Sam. vii. 2, ' Shall I dwell in a house of cedar, and the ark of God dwell within curtains?' Observe the different workings of their spirits. Nebuchadnezzar, walk- ing in his palace, groweth proud: ' Is not this great Babel, which 1 have built? ' The Jews, in their ceiled houses, grow careless: ' The time to build the Lord's house is not come.' David, in his curious house of cedar, growetli religious : What have I done for the ark of God, who hath done so much for me? Well, then, honour God in your houses, lest you become the burdens of them, and they spue you out. The twelve tribes were scattered,
2. The infallibility of his truth ; they were punished ' as their con- gregation had heard ;' as the prophet speaketh, Hosea vii. 11, 12. In judicial dispensations, it is good to observe not only God's justice, but God's truth. No calamity befell Israel but what was in the letter foretold in the books of Moses; a man might have written their history out of the threatenings of the law. See Lev. xxvi. 33 : ' If ye walk contrary unto me, I will scatter you among the heathens, and will draw a sword after you.' Tiie like is threatened in Deut. xxviii. ()4 : ' And the Lord shall scatter you from one end of the earth unto another among all the people.' And you see how suitable the event was to the prophecy; and therefore I conceive James useth this exi)ression of ' the twelve tribes,' when that distinction was antiquated, and the tribes mucb confounded, to show that they, who were once twelve flom-ishing trii)es, were now, by the accomplishment of that prophecy, sadly scattered and mingled among the nations.
3. The tenderness of his love to the believers among them ; ho hath a James for the Christians of the scattered tribes, In the severest ways of his justice he doth not forget his own, and he hath special consolations for them when they lie under the common judgment. When other Jews were banished, John, amongst the rest, was banished out of Ephesus into Batmos, a barren, miserable! rock or island ; but there ho had those high revelations, Kev. i. U. Well, then, wherever you are, you are near to God ; he is a (jJod at hand, and a God afar off: when you lose your dwelling, you do not lose your interest in Christ; and yon aro everywhere at home, but there where you arc strangers to God.