Jer. xiv. 20, 21. We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers : for we have sinned against thee. Do not abhor us, for thy names sake ; do not disgrace the throne of thy glory : remember, break not thy covenant with us.
" LORD, teach us to pray," was the request of the Apostles to their Lord and Master : and may Almighty God teach us to pray, whilst we consider the passage we have just read. Here is prayer indeed, such as it becomes us all to offer ; and such as we shall surely offer, if ever we be duly sensible of our state before God. It was offered by the prophet in a season of great affliction. The whole land was in the utmost distress by reason of a drought, which put a total stop to vegetation, and destroyed all the fruits of the earth : and the prophet was assured, that that distress would speedily become extreme by means of the Chaldeans, who would invade the country, and deso- late Jerusalem with the sword and famine. Under these circumstances, he was commanded not to pray for the people, since the measure of their iniquities was fulla. But, like Moses of oldb, the prophet could not forbear : he first indeed warned the people of the judgments which God was about to inflict upon themc, and then, in a most earnest and humble manner, pleaded with God in their behalfd.
We propose,
I. To explain this prayer of the prophet —
His acknowledgments are plain and easy to be un- derstood—
[He confesses, as he might well do, the sins of the whole nation ; as well those contracted by their ancestors, as those which they had themselves committed : and he entreats God " not to abhor them" on account of their extreme wickedness. Now this expression, whilst it marked his sense of their vile- ness, had particular reference to what God himself had threatened by Moses, and to what he had promised also in the event of their humbling of themselves before hime. Hence, in the verse before the text, the prophet asks, " Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul lothed Zion ?"]
His pleas require some explanation —
a ver. 10, 11. b Exod. xxxii. 10, 11.
c ver. 15 — 18. d ver. 19—22.
e Lev. xxvi. 10 — 12. with 27 — 30 ; in both of which passages especial mention is made of famine as connected with God's abhor- rence.