The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 168

taneousness. No force is needed to draw forth their streams. 6. Copiousness. 7. Effectiveness. The course of a stream is ever discernible by its effects. It tells on all that it touches, it leaves nothing as it was before it came. 8. Force. The fountain will have way given to it. It will break all barriers that block its way. II. THE LESSON IB OBVIOUS. Shall we divert its streams, and compel them to run only in quiet safe places where they will cause us no worldly harm? This is what most men try to do, and very often succeed in doing. But this is not God's plan. His charge is, "Make the fQUntain good." And this he can do ; he can create a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us. "He that believeth in me," said our Saviour, "from within him shall flow rivers of living water;" not, as now, rivers of death. 0 Christ- • "Thou of life the Fountain art, Freely let me take of thee: Spring thou up within my heart, Rise to all eternity." c. Ver. 8.-The worst woe of the wicked. "Be thou instructed, 0 Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee." I. THERE ARE IIIANY WOES wmoH ACC0IIIPANY BIN. "Many sorrows shall be to the wicked." All observation attests the truth of this word. II. BUT THERE IS ONE WHICH IIIAY FITLY DE SPOKEN OF AB THE WORST OF ALL, It is this-God's soul departing from the sinner. This indeed is terrible. It is so amongst men. We hear at times of those who have worn out the love even of those who loveu them most tenderly. They have made the soul of those who loved them to depart from them. Sons have done this for fathers and mothers, friends for frieuds, husbands for wives and wives for husbands; and to have thus driven away a deep and earnest love is a depth of ruin than which none in this world can be more terrible. But to have worn out the love of God-to have made his soul to depart from us, what woe can compare to that? His providential favour may depart from us, and that is sad. Our realization of his love in our hearts may depart from us, and that is sadder still. But for his love itself to depart, that is the worst of all. III. WHAT, THEN, CAN CAUSE so GREAT A CALAMITY TO COME UPON A lllAN? It is his refusing instruction (cf. Prov. i.," Seeing thou hatest knowledge," etc.). 'l'his Judah and Jerusalem were doing; this all too many are doing now. IV. BuT TIDB Goo DEPRECATES GREATLY, AND IMPLORES us NOT TO DE GUILTY OF. "Be thou instructed, 0 J erusa.lem," ( cf. our Saviour's tears over J erusa.lem). Appeal.-U. Ver. 9.-" Turn back thine hand." Tho text, no doubt, tells of the utter anJ. complete desolation which would result from the Cha.ldean invasion of Judah and Jerusalem. In vivid drnmatic form Jehovah is represented as bidding the invading armies go over their ruthless work a.gain, and make the desolation yet more awful. Like as the grape-gatherer, after he had to all appearances stripped the vine of its clusters, would " turn back his hand " amongst the tendrils, and search once more over the whole branch to see that no solitary cluster had escaped him(" tendrils," rather than "baskets," a.re what is meant; see Exposition); so, if there were a solitary village or homestead which had escaped the fury of the foe, they are bidden go back on their work, that none whatever might escape. Such the meaning, and it was ruthlessly fulfilled. But the form of expression may be applied, not murcly to the ministers of God's vengeance, as in the text, but to those who serve him in ways far more accept- able and ordinary. We, therefore, take the charge, "Turn back thine hand as " grape-gatherer," and address it- I. To THOSE WHO ARE AT WORK FOR Goo. The self-sati.'fied, who look at their work with too much content, as if it could not be bettered,-these need this charge. And the discouraged, who are for throwing up their work, abandoning it in sorrow and despair, believing they can do nothing more,-to them God would s11y 1 " 'l'urn back thine hand." To those who desire to do theii· work thoroughly. Go over it a.gain. See how Paul was constantly in the ha.bit of " turning back his hand," i.e. going over the Churches that ho had established, revisiting them, in order that he might "confirm" them in the  166 Tlrn BOOK OF THU: l'ROl'llE'l' JEHEmAII. (cu. v1. 1-30.