The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 106

I. TnEm NATUTIE. 1. The eight of the constant dishonour done to God. This wag part of our Lord's suffering. Living amongst men at all involved it. It has been said truly that, if the Son of God became incarnate, he must be a "man of sorrows." But if it be a pain and outrage to an affectionate son to hear his father, whom he knows to be worthy of all honour, yet nevertheless insulted, and to see him daily dishonoured, what must have been the suITerings of our Lord at what he daily had to see and hear! And-to Jeremiah this was one chief part of bis sorrow. To him the Name of Goel was dear; his honour and glory precious; but let these chapters tell what scenes continu- ally came before hlm. "Rivers of water run down mine eyes because men keep not, thy Law." Dishonour done to God has ever been distress and pain to his servants. 2. 'l'he endurance of the scorn and hate of men. To some men this is nothing. They answer scorn by scorn and hate by hate. They choose war rather than peace. But in proportion as a man is of a loving disposition, and has lavished his love upon any, he will desire, yea, yearn for, a response. Do not parents desire it in their chil- dren? Would they not be distressed indeed if they did not receive it? And so with our Lord. He had no armour of indifference, or contempt, or hate against men. But he opened his heart to them. There was no stint in the love he lavished upon them. Hence he could not but long to receive a response to that love. The cross itself was wreathed with attractiveness for him, because it, though nothing else would, would draw all men unto him, And in the fellowship of thls suffering Jeremiah shared. He, though deeply loving his people and faithfully serving them, yet was denied the response of trust and Jove which he would fain have gained. He, too, " was despised and rejected of men." 3. The realizing, by the power of affectionate sympathy, the awful conse- quences of his countrymen's sin. It is the effect of such sympathy to cause the sufferings of those we love to come before us in such terrible vividness that they fill the soul with an anguish that is almost intolerable. Hence our Lord's deep distress (cf. "0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem I" etc. and his lament over the doomed city and people). But in this suffering of our Lord Jeremiah had indeed fellowship (cf. vers. 23-30.) He saw the destruction that was coming on Judah and Jerusalem in its entireness. " The whole land is spoiled ; " " The whole land shall be desolate." In its suddenness. "Suddenly are," etc. (ver. 20). In its duration. Ver. 21, "How long shall I see the standard?" etc. It could not be a passing storm, but an abiding wrath. .And more still, ho sees how deserved it all was (vers. 18, 22). And then how awful I It was as if original chaos had come again (ver. 23; cf. Gen. i.). It was as the dread and never-to- be-forgotten manifestation of God at Sinai, when the mountains trembled and all who beheld were stricken with fear (ver. 24). For the devastation caused by the "spoilers" had been so thorough, they had done their work in such fearful fashion, that districts heretofore teeming with population were now solitary and lone as the desert; and so stripped were they of all that could minister to life, that the very birds had fled away (vers. 25, 26). '1'he awful spectacle was clearly visible to the prophet's eye, and, as he looked upon it all and knew how certain was its advent, he cries out as in the agony of dread bodily paiu (ver. 19). 4. The witnessing day by day the decny of nil goodness and the firmer hold of sin. Our blessed Lord's tears over Jerusalem, his oft" sighing," his agony, his long lament over the guilty people, were not caused only, nor chiefly, by the mere fact of their sufferings, but it was because of the increasing alienation from God, the ever-hardening heart, the mighty power of sin upon them, that his bitterest tears were shed and his deepest agony endured. And so with Jeremiah. Pain and distress were evils undoubtedly, but they were ns nought compared with the moral degradation, the spiritual wickedness, which he saw around him and increasing every day, 6. The being compelled to utter the "amen" of his soul to the judgment of God as "true and righteous altogether." ,vith what agony would 11. father witness the accumulation of proof upon proof that his son whom he loved had been guilty of crime that deserved and must receive condign punishment I To be obliged to own to himself that his beloved son is righteously condemned-what sorrow that! And this confession our Lord made. His death meant this-his assent to the judgment of God a"ainst sin that that judgment was just. Death was the penalty, and ho submitted to it And never has death been, nor can it be to any child of God, what it was to onr Lord. The realiz11tion of sin, the consciousness that on him was the iniquity of us all, and how awful but how just was the wrath of Gull ngainst it,-this ex1 1lains that  102 TUE DOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMI.AH. [en. 1v. 1-31.