The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 67

however, lies in this, that there was an ordained inability for tho wife to return to her first husband. The marriage tie, in spite of all the apparent facility of divorce, was not a thing to play fast and loose with. The way of departure might seem compara- tively easy, but the· way of return was altogether hedged up. We behold a curious mixture of indulgence and severity-indulgence for a time because of the hardness of the people's hearts; severity, in order that society might be kept together at all.· For a husband t-0 take back such a wife was ordained a ceremonial pollution, which needed t-0 be clennsed away. 13ut if such a return was impossible, still more evidently impossible was the return of one who had lived as a harlot. Yet thus did Israel, once the loving, devoted spouse (eh. ii. l}, now appear to Jehovah. Her life of desertion from Jehovah is described as one continuous, shameless exhibition of the harlot's lust. And it is just in the light of all this terrible impurity that the word comes to her, "Retnrn again to me, saith the Lord." • II. CONSIDER ROW IT COMES THAT Goo 0AN ADDllESS SUCH AN INVITATION.· It is the old st-Ory of God's power to do things which man, however lovina and merciful he may be in disposition, finds to be quite beyond his reach. Man, with the best inten- tions, with the most sympathetic heart, is limited in his resources to the outcast by the necessities of human society. To put one who has been an habitual. thief in a posi~i~n of serious trust, is a thing so hard as to be practically impossible. The victims of vic.10us inclinations may be deeply pitied, an:d yet the moment one tries to give them any large measure of help, the claims of others somehow come in to forbid. ·But God, as he rises far above man in his love a.nd mercy and insight into the sinning human heart, so he rises-if one may thus put it-higher still in his power to give an amply sufficient help. God can bring back into the privileges and possibilities belong- ing to his Church, he can bring under all the penetrating potencies of his grace, the very worst apostate. Wbat creature can be thought of more 'defiled than the harlot? Human reclaiming agencies can do nothing to serve her or sil.ve her, except as they put in their forefront the loving-kindness of God in Christ Jesus. It is well for us when we have to consider the impure, the degraded, the despairing slaves of'vice, to consider also· these encouraging words of God, "Return to me." Think much of him who spoke them, and then of the sort of people to whom they were spoken. Those who are most of all suffering in social outlawry may read all the horrible descriptions of abandon- ment to impurity found not only in this prophet but in others, ·and then say with the most joyful hope, "If Israel, being such, was 'pressed to return, _I also may return." Hosea gives the appropriate words for such, "l will go and return to _my fi:rst'husband ; for then was it better with me than now'' (Hos. ii. 7). And to keep up the figure, what will the end of such a Divine invitation and such a human resolution be? It is found in Rev. xxi., where we read the following request, "Coi:ne. hither; I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife." The first Israel-sank into an indescribable sharoe; the second Israel _vrill rise into an in'describabl_e glory.---Y; . Ver. 4.-Israel's cry to fhe Father and the Friend. l. OBSERVE THE BUDDEN ORANGE OF RELATION wmorr IB THUS BROUGHT BEFonE us. Hitherto we have had before us Jehovah's description of Israel under the guise of a wife departing from her husband !Oto the most degrading and shameless conduct. And now our thoughts are suddenly turned, with nothing to prepare for the transition, to a new relation-that of father and child. Note that it is not God who directly presents himself in this relation. "Father" is a term pu_t into the mouths of the people in the preceding chapter and _a\~o in this. In eh. ii. 27 they are represented as sayin()' to a stocle," Thou art my father; and now they say to Jehovah, " Thou art my Fath~r, the Friend, tlie Companion of my youth;'' Jt may be that there was no depth of. real sincerity in the cry, even though it _is de- scribed as a cry and not a mere perfunctory recognitibn-at all events, it sets forth. a fact. Jehovah 'was a Father to the nation of Israel in this sense, that it was by- his peculiar and necessary power that Israel was separated in all sorts of profo_undly ~ig- nificant ways from the great mass of mankind. When Abram started forth, not know- ing whither he went, this was to him a sort of being born again; an entirely new life lay before him, with expectations that he never could have cherished but that God planted them deep in his heart. And thus the name is a right and needful name to n.se. lt;rnel is doing what it ought to do when it says," Abba, Father!" The idea oH, m. 1-25.] 'fHE. BOOK OF 'fHE PROPHET JEREMIAH. 63