The Pulpit Commentary — Lamentations — Section 76

regl\rded as more than a mere possession. It was considered to be received from God as an inheritance, and held by a Divine right. Yet even this sacred soil was tllkcn away from the people. Str&nge races from the East settled down upon it, and the rightful owners were driven into captivity or compelled to pay for water from the wells their fathers had dug, and for fuel from their own woods (ver. 4). A second time the people have been driven from their inheritance, and Turkish mosques now desecrate the city of the Jews. TI. 'l'HE SPIRITIJAL INHERITANCE OF IsRAEr, WAS TURNED TO STRANGERS. The Jews were more than possessors of one little favoured land. To them were entrusted the orncles of God. Prophets and priests g&ve them peculiar privileges in spiritual things. 'l'Lcy were a people of God's own possession. The blessings of the Jews were to culminate in the advent of the Messiah. The Messiah came. He came to his own inheritance, and his own people received him not; for Christ first offered himself to Jews, and Christ was first refused by Jews. In rejecting Christ the house of Israel rejected its true inheritance. Gentiles took up the privileges which Jews despised, We and other nations of Gentile Christendom a.re the strangers to whom their inheri• tance is turned over. TIL THE CHRISTIAN INHERITANCE llJAY BE TURNED TO STRANGERS. There havo been Christian lands, such as North Africa and Asio. Minor, which have lost their Chris- tianity and have passed into the possession of the bitterest foes of the Crucified. Within the pale of Christendom the inheritance may be lost. If we permit unbelief to lay hold of people who once enjoyed full faith in Christ, this result will take place. When men who are unbelievers at heart get possession of Christian pulpits and undermine the very faith they are supposed to be preaching, is not this a. terrible instance of the inheritance passing to strangers P IV. THE INHERITANCE IS TUBJ:\"'ED TO STRANGERS BECAUSE THE CONDITIONS ON WHIOH IT IS HELD ABE VIOLATED. This truth applies to all three cases just described-to Israel's eartLly inheritance and her spiritual inheritance and to the Christian inheri- tance. The land was not given to strangers till after strange gods had been admitted into the land. It was always designed by God that the privileges of the gospel should be given to Gentiles as well as to Jews (e.g. Isa. Ix. 3). But it was owing to their refusal of these privileges that the Jews lost their own share in them. The inheritance was to have been widened to admit new citizens; the old citizens cast themselves out of it, and so gave place to the new. In like manner Christ never takes the candlestick from any portion of his Church till his people have faithlessly cast him out of their hearts. V. THE LOST INHERITANCE IS TO BE BESTOBED. Whether Israel will return to Palestine is only a question for the curious, and of no great practical interest. For so long as the people are restored to God and truly prosperous it caunot much matter on what spot of the globe they reside. In their palmy days many of them were in the ha.bit of wandering far from their native land. But the true restoration, restoratio~ to the spiritual inheritance in God, is promised to all who will return to him (Isa. lxi. 1-3). Ver. 3.-0rphanage and widowhood. In the desolation of Jerusalem the inhabitants felt like orphans and widows, bereaved of the stay and comfort of life, uncared for and homeless. Many would be literaliy orphaned and widowed after the great slaughter of tLe siege. The sad condition of these greatest sufferers brings before our notice the similar trouble of those who are similarly situated in our own day. L ORPHANAGE AND WIDOWHOOD INVOLVE OVERWHELMING SORROW. The mournful condition of the sufferers is the first thing to strike us. Their sorrow is keen because it concerns a nearest and dearest relative, and it is the more dreadful because it strikes a whole family. Moreover, the trouble is not simply one of affection. The bread-winner is lost. The prop and streogth of the household is cut down. The protector of the helpless is removed. The guide and counsellor of the young is no more. ll. OBPHANAGE AND WIDOWHOOD SHOW US THE BROKEN CHARACTER OF HUMAN LIFE, There is a oneness in a true family. All the members together constitute e. unit. But when death claims the head the family is broken and its completeness destroyed. Then part is on earth and part in the other world. 'l'ha widow and her children thus OH, V, 1-22,] TUE LAMENTATIONS OF JETIEML\H. 83