Ver. 2. The beginning of it in ver. 2. hath two parts.
1. The frame of the prophet's spirit in his address to God; ' O Jehovah, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid.'
2. His request in this his condition ; ' O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known, in wrath remember mercy.'
1. In the first you have,
(1.) Particularly his frame ; he was afraid, or trembled ; which he wonderfully sets out, ver. 16. ' When I heard, my belly trembled, my lips quivered at the voice; rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself.'
(2.) The cause of this fear and trembling; he 'heard the speech of God.' If you will ask what speech or report this was that made the prophet himself so exceedingly quake and tremble ; I answer, it is particularly that which you have, chap. i. 5 — 12. containing a dreadful denunciation of the judgments of God against the people of Israel, to be executed by the proud, cruel, insulting Chaldeans. This voice, this report of God, makes the prophet tremble.
IV. Observation. An appearance of God in anger and threats against a people, should make his choicest secret ones among them to fear, to quake, and tremble.
Trembling of man's heart must answer the shaking of God's hand. At the delivery of the law with all its attend- ing threats, so terrible was the sight, that Moses himself ^though a mediator then) did exceedingly fear and quake ; Heb. xii. 21. God will be acknowledged in all his goings. If men will not bow before liim, he will break them. They who fear not his threatenings, shall feel his inflictings ; if his word be esteemed light, his hand will be found heavy. For,
In point of deserving who can say,' I have purged my heart, I am clean from sin? None ought to be fearless, un- less they be senseless. God's people are so far from being always clear of procuring national judgments, that some- times,*" judgments have come upon nations for the sins of some of God's people amongst them ; as the plague in the days of David.
'Job xiv. 4. XV. 15, J 6. ProT. xvi. 2. xx. 19. ^ 2 .Sam. xsiv. \b. 1 Chron. xxxii. 25.
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And in point of suffering, who knows but they may have a deep share? The prophet's book is written within, as well as without, with 'lamentation, mourning, and woe;' Ezek. ii. 10. If ' the lion roars, who can but fear?' Amos iii. 8. Fear to the rooting out of security, not the shaking of faith; fear to the pulling down of carnal presidence, not Christian confidence ; fear to draw out our souls in prayer, not to swallow them up in despair ; fear to break the arm of flesh, but not to weaken the staff of the promise; fear that we may draw nigh to God with reverence, not to run from him with diffidence; in a word, to overthrow faithless presumption, and to increase gracious submission.
2. Here is the prophet's request. And in this there are these two things :
(1.) The thing he desireth ; ' The reviving God's work, the remembering mercy.'
(2.) The season he desireth it in; 'In the midst of the years.'
(1.) For the first, that which in the beginning of the verse he calls God's work, in the close of it he termeth mercy; and the i*eviving his work, is interpreted to be a remember- ing mercy. These two expressions then are parallel. The reviving of God's w'ork towards his people is a re-acting of mercy, a bringing forth the fruits thereof, and that in the midst of the execution of wrath ; as a man in the midst of another, remembering a business of more importance, in- stantly turneth away, and applieth himself thereunto.
V. Observation. Acts of mercy are God's proper work towards his people, which he will certainly awake, and keep alive in the saddest times.
Mercy you see is his work, his proper work, as he calleth 'judgment his strange act;' Isa. xxviii. 21. ' He retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy ;' Micah vii. 18. This is his proper work : though it seem to sleep, he will awake it; though it seem to die, he will revive it. ' Can a woman forget her child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee : behold, I have graven
'Cranes seculi plagae, nobis in admonitionein, vobis in castigationem a Deo ve- niunt. Tertul. Apol. cap. 42.
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thee upon the palms of my hands, thy walls are continually before me;' Isa. xlix. \6, 17.
(2.) For the season of this work, he prays that it may be accomplished ' in the midst of the years;' upon which you may see what weight he lays by his repetition of it in the same verse. It is something doubtful what may be the peculiar sense of these words ; whether ' the midst of the years'"" do not denote the whole time of the people's bondage under the Chaldeans (whence Junius renders the words, * interea temporis,' noting this manner of expression, ' the midst of the years,' for a Hebraism), during which space he intercedes for mercy for them ; or whether 'the midst of the years' do not denote some certain point of time, as the season of their return from captivity, about the midst of the yearsbetween their first king, and the coming of the Messiah, putting a period to their church and state. Whether of these is more probable, is not needful to insist upon; this is certain, that a certain time is pointed at ; which will yield us,