The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 291

shines more brightly still by contrast with the darkness and shame that l\re over against it.. He is tha great and strong One, the living One, llnd the evel'lastina King, The ever-living God over ~aainst dead and degraded matterl-can there be a"greater oontrast? And to bring out God's strength, his strength to make his wrath felt as real suffering in the Ii.ea of those who displease him, the contrast is ml\de, not between the Jiving G-od llnd dead idols, but between the omnipotent Ruler and the kin<rs of t.l1e nat.ions. Take the kings of the nations; take him who rules the widest territory, controls the largest resources, shows in himself tho greatest resolution and force of character, achieves tho most splendid reign that history can record-take such a ono, and ;yet what is he over against Jehovah? Jehovah is the King of the nations. It is h111 power that moulds them and gives them their destiny, their place in his economy of the ages. And as Jeremiah contemplates all this, he says, "Who would not fear thee?" Certainly there are none but what would fear, and with a properly befitting fear, if only tliey could properly regard the object presented to them. But while men are fearing that which need not be feared, they depart further and further from a Bense of him who holds in his self-sufficing being complete power over all their best interests. When they suffer, being deceived by lying lips, they attribute their suffer- ing to the wrath of a God whom they themselves imagine; and so, fixing their minds by a kind of fascination on the wrong cause, they fail to have even the least suspicion of the right one. If, when a blow falls upon us, we could trace that blow back, and see how much of it comes from God, and with what purpose it comes, then how much useless suffering would be spnred l But blows come on men in the dark, and they prefer to remain in the dark with their evil deeds rather than be freed from their misconceptions by coming to the light.-Y. Ver. 2.-The dismay of the heathen at the signs of heaven. By the signs of heaven here are doubtless meant those heavenly bodies given for signs and seasons, days and years (Gen. i. 14); this view still further helping to explain the reference in cb. viii. 3 to sun and moon and all the host of heaven. Why these should terrify it is not very easy for us to comprehend, surrounded as we are by quite different associations. Often, indeed, there is cause of terror in the heavens above us, as when the depths of the celestial spaces are hidden from us by the thunder-cloud, and when the stormy blasts go forth on their errand of destruction over la.nd and sea. But such terrorn, we know, come from things nearer the earth. Sun and moon and all the host of heaven have quite a different effect on our minds. And we know, too, from the refer- ences to them in the Scriptures, that they did not terrify those who knew God. 'fhe Book of Psalms shows nothing of dismay at the signs of hea.ven; rather it sets them forth as helping to produce cheerfulness, enjoyment, and elevating adoration towards him who made them. Such feelings have never been absent from the minds of those who have really comprehended whose handiwork the heavenly bodies are, and why he brought them into existence. How is it, then, that by such a strong expression they are here i·epresented as being objects of terror f 'l'he answer is, that the maker of them being unknown, and the purpose of them being undiscernible, to those whose minds were darkened by wicked works, they had· to make their own conjectures. And thus they filled the darkness of their ignorance with horrid, stupefying errors. 'l'o sun and moon and all the host of hea.ven they came to attribute a kind of personality. And then to the personality thus conceived there would be attached the two contrasted states of mind of complacency and wrath. Complacency appeared in the warmth, brightness, and clearness of day, and the cloudless skies of night, when moon and slars were revealed in all their milder splendour. Wrath, on the other hand, would i.eem to be shown by the eclipse, the waning of the moon, by rolling clouds, destructive atorms, thunder and lightning, long droughts, meteors, comets, etc. And once having ;:ot into their heads tha.t sun, moon, and stars had ,Divine dignity about them, it was nothing very wonderful that these heathen should be thus terrified by everything in the way of celestial commotion. In every such commotion tho frowning faces of tho cdestial gods would be visible, and every injury thus coming would be reckoned as a_ blow from them. The words of the messenger to Job, telling him how the light- mng had destroyed his flocks, may be adduced as a very striking \llustration of dismay at the sigoe of heaven. What does the messenger tell Job? 'l bat the fire o/ ou, x. 1-26.J 'l'IlE BOOK Oll' 'l'HE PROPHET JEREMIAH. 291