The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 240

Ver. 20.-" The life i's more than the meat." .After the subsidence of the Deluge, there was a promise given to Noah that," while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, ... summer and winter, ... shall not cease." Scanning the surface of the Scripture nar- rative, it appears as if this promise h~d not been kept, seeing there is a record of oevera.l notable and protracted famines ; and moreover, we have only too good reason to suppose that millions in the successive ages of the world have perished from famine. We must bold, however, to God's promise having been kept in the spirit of it; its non- fulfilmcut, so far as human experience is concerned, must arise from some other cause than the unfaithfulness of God. An inquiry into these painful experiences is suggested by the utterance of this verse. The meaning seems to be that harvest and summer, the annual gathering of the corn and the wine and the oil, have nevertheless, in some way or other, left the people who should have profited by them, unprovided for. The words may be applied in two ways. 1. When there is an actual gathering of harvest. 'l'here may be au abundance, even a superabundance, of the fruits of the earth, and yet those who sowed and planted, watched and watered, may not get the slightest benefit. Now, not to get the expected benefit from these things means, if not destruction of life, at least a considerable impairment of it; for natural life depends upon them. And eh. v. 15-24 casts no small light on this state of things. There the mighty men from the north are spoken of, and Israel is addressed as follows:-" 'J'hey shall eat up thine harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat: . . . they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees." Strangers pluck the rich fruit of the husbandman's toil, and he himself is trampled into privatio11, reduced to the bare subsistence of a slave ta.ken in war. Thus we see how God may lay before a. man that which through the sin and folly of the recipient he may not be able to use. 'l'hink of the prosperous man in the parable, who bad such abundant crops that he must needs build bigger barns, and yet in the very day of his pride was taken away. What is wealth unless God, in the prosecution of his own wise purposes, chooses to give security in the possession of that wealth ? 2. When the harvest itself fails. The harvest season may pass and the summer close, only to leave men with empty garners, in hunger and despair. Whither shall they turn, when drought, blasting,and milclew, palmerworm and locust, cankerworm and caterpillar, have done their work? Then it is that "those who are slain with the sword are better than those who are slain with hunger, for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field" (Lam. iv. 9). Thus, whether the harvest be given or withheld, the practical result is the same. The people are not saved. God may bring the harvest to a complete and beautiful maturity, may, so to speak, save the harvest-and "save the harvest" is not an unfamiliar expression to those who are engaged in the vicissitudes of agriculture-only to teach thereby a more impressi\•e lesson to the people who live so that they cannot be kept safe. What force there is in the expression of this verse if we ta.kc it to mean, "'l'he corn is saved; the vi.ritage is saved; the olives arc saved; all the pleasant fruits of the land are saved; but we are hut saved"! The life is more than the bodily nourishment, and when men will not take lwed to the higher things which belong to the life, it is just what might be expected tliat they should have disappointments iu fhe lower things which belong to the nourish,. <JH, vm. 1-22.] 'l'HE BOOK OF THE .PROPHET JEREMIAH. 2.39